Soil Microbial Legacy Overrides the Responses of a Dominant Grass and Nitrogen-Cycling Functional Microbes in Grassland Soil to Nitrogen Addition

Abstract

Both atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition and soil microbial legacy (SML) can affect plant performance, the activity of soil N-cycling functional microbes and the relative abundance of N-cycling functional genes (NCFGs). In the grassland vegetation successional process, how the interaction of SML and N deposition affects the performance of dominant grass and NCFGs remains unclear. Therefore, we planted Leymus chinensis, a dominant grass in the Songnen grassland, in the soil taken from the early, medium, late, and stable successional stages. We subjected the plants to soil sterilization and N addition treatments and measured the plant traits and NCFG abundances (i.e., nifH, AOB amoA, nirS, and nirK). Our results showed the biomass and ramet number of L. chinensis in sterilized soil were significantly higher than those in non-sterilized soil, indicating that SML negatively affects the growth of L. chinensis. However, N addition increased the plant biomass and the AOB amoA gene abundance only in sterilized soils, implying that SML overrode the N addition effects because SML buffered the effects of increasing soil N availability on NCFGs. Therefore, we emphasize the potential role of SML in assessing the effects of N deposition on dominant plant performance and NCFGs in the grassland vegetation succession.