Effects of short-term soil tillage practice on activity and community structure of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea under the double-cropping rice field

Aims The potential nitrification activity (PNA), population size and community composition of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) in paddy soil from a short-term (5 years) tillage field experiment conducted at tillering stage of late rice were investigated using the shaken slurry method and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Methods and Results The experiment included four tillage treatments: conventional tillage with crop residue incorporation (CT), rotary tillage with crop residue incorporation (RT), no-tillage with crop residue returning (NT) and rotary tillage with all crop residues removed as a control (RTO). The results showed that PNA in paddy soil of CT, RT and NT treatments was higher than that of RTO treatment, and the abundance of AOA and AOB was much higher in paddy soil of CT, RT and NT treatments than RTO treatment. Meanwhile, PNA and the abundance of AOB and AOA in paddy soil were greatly enhanced by combined application of tillage and crop residue, whereas PNA and the abundance of AOB and AOA in paddy soil were decreased by combined application of no-tillage and crop residue. Moreover, PNA was closely correlated with the abundance and community structure of AOB rather than AOA. The results also showed that PNA and the population sizes of AOB and AOA in crop incorporation treatments were higher than that of crop residue removed treatment. Cluster and redundancy analyses indicated that crop residue effect played a more important role in shaping AOA community structure compared to short-term tillage management. Conclusions The results indicated that AOB rather than AOA functionally dominated ammonia oxidation in the double-cropping rice paddy soil, the activities of AOB and AOA were increased and the community structure was also changed under the combination of conventional tillage, rotary tillage and crop residue condition. Significance and Impact of Study The activity and community structure of AOB and AOA, which were affected by the combination of tillage and crop residue managements, play an important role in cycling of nitrogen.