[Effects of intensive management on abundance and composition of soil N2-fixing bacteria in Phyllostachys heterocycla stands].

Denaturing gradient-gel electrophoresis and real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) were employed to determine the effects of intensive management on soil N2-fixing bacteria in a moso bamboo (Phyllostachys heterocycla) plantation. Soil samples were collected from the moso bamboo stands receiving 0 (CK), 10, 15, 20, and 25 years of intensive management. It was found that intensive management caused a strong decrease in soil pH but a general increase in soil available nutrients. The structure of the N2-fixing bacterial communities in the soils having received 10 and 25 years of intensive management were quite similar to that from the CK; however, those from 15 and 20 years of intensification differed from the CK. With increasing time of intensive management, the abundance and diversity of the nifH gene at first decreased and then increased, with the minimum values being observed after 15 years of intensive management, indicating the eventual resiliency of N2-fixing bacteria to disturbance induced by intensive management. Redundancy analysis indicated that soil available potassium, available nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, and ammonium nitrogen were more closely related to the changes of N2-fixing bacterial community structure compared with the other soil indices measured. In conclusion, the soil N2-fixing bacterial community was negatively affected by intensive management in the short term, but could recover in the long term.

[Effects of bamboo charcoal on the growth of Trifolium repens and soil bacterial community structure].

The effects of addition rates (0, 3% and 9%) and particle sizes (0.05, 0.05-1.0 and 1.0-2.0 mm) of bamboo charcoal on the growth of Trifolium repens and soil microbial community structure were investigated. The results showed that bamboo charcoal addition greatly promoted the early growth of T. repens, with the 9% charcoal addition rate being slightly better than the 3% charcoal addition rate. The effects of different particle sizes of bamboo charcoal on the growth of T. repens were not different significantly. Growth promotion declined with time during 120 days after sowing, and disappeared completely after 5 months. DGGE analysis of the bacterial 16S rDNA V3 fragment indicated that bamboo charcoal altered the soil bacterial community structure. The amount and Shannon diversity index of bacteria in the bamboo charcoal addition treatments increased compared with CK. The quantitative analysis showed that the amount of bacteria in the treatment with bamboo charcoal of fine particle (D < 0.05 mm) at the 9% addition rate was significantly higher than in the other treatments. The fine bamboo charcoal had a great effect on soil bacteria amount compared with the charcoal of other sizes at the same addition rate.