Cavigelli, M. A. and G. P. Robertson. 2000. The functional significance of denitrifier community composition in a terrestrial ecosystem. Ecology 81:1402-1414.

We tested the hypothesis that soil microbial diversity affects ecosystem function by evaluating the effect of denitrifier community composition on nitrous oxide (N2O) production. We sampled two geomorphically similar soils from fields that differed in plant community composition and disturbance regime — a conventionally-tilled agricultural field and a never-tilled successional field — in southwest Michigan. We tested whether denitrifier community composition influences denitrification rate and the relative rate of N2O production [ΔN2O/(ΔN2O+N2)], or rN2O, using a soil enzyme assay designed to evaluate the effect of oxygen concentration and pH on the activity of denitrification enzymes responsible for the production and consumption of N2O. By controlling, or providing in non-limiting amounts, all known environmental regulators of denitrifier N2O production and consumption, we created conditions in which the only variable contributing to differences in denitrification rate and rN2O in the two soils was denitrifier community composition. We found that both denitrification rate and rN2O differed for the two soils under controlled incubation conditions. Oxygen inhibited the activity of enzymes involved in N2O production (nitrate reductase, Nar; nitrite reductase, Nir; and nitric oxide reductase, Nor) to a greater extent in the denitrifying community from the agricultural field than in the community from the successional field. The Nar, Nir and Nor enzymes of the denitrifying community from the successional field, on the other hand, were more sensitive to pH than were those in the denitrifying community from the agricultural field. Moreover, the denitrifying community in the soil from the successional field had relatively more active nitrous oxide reductase (Nos) enzymes, which reduce N2O to N2, than the denitrifying community in the agricultural field. Also, the shape of the rN2O curve with increasing oxygen was different for each denitrifying community. Each of these differences suggests that the denitrifying communities in these two soils are different and that they do not respond to environmental regulators in the same manner. We thus conclude that native microbial community composition regulates an important ecosystem function in these soils.

DOI: 10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081[1402:TFSODC]2.0.CO;2

Associated Treatment Areas:

T8 T1

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