Comparison of bacterial and archaeal communities in two fertilizer doses and soil compartments under continuous cultivation system of garlic.

Soil microbial communities are affected by interactions between agricultural management (e.g., fertilizer) and soil compartment, but few studies have considered combinations of these factors. We compared the microbial abundance, diversity and community structure in two fertilizer dose (high vs. low NPK) and soil compartment (rhizosphere vs. bulk soils) under 6-year fertilization regimes in a continuous garlic cropping system in China. The soil contents of NO3- and available K were significantly higher in bulk soil in the high-NPK. The 16S rRNA gene-based bacterial and archaeal abundances were positively affected by both the fertilizer dose and soil compartment, and were higher in the high-NPK fertilization and rhizosphere samples. High-NPK fertilization increased the Shannon index and decreased bacterial and archaeal richness, whereas the evenness was marginally positively affected by both the fertilizer dose and soil compartment. Soil compartment exerted a greater effect on the bacterial and archaeal community structure than did the fertilization dose, as demonstrated by both the nonmetric multidimensional scaling and redundancy analysis results. We found that rhizosphere effects significantly distinguished 12 dominant classes of bacterial and archaeal communities, whereas the fertilizer dose significantly identified four dominant classes. In particular, a Linear Effect Size analysis showed that some taxa, including Alphaproteobacteria, Rhizobiales, Xanthomonadaceae and Flavobacterium, were enriched in the garlic rhizosphere of the high-NPK fertilizer samples. Overall, the fertilizer dose interacted with soil compartment to shape the bacterial and archaeal community composition, abundance, and biodiversity in the garlic rhizosphere. These results provide an important basis for further understanding adaptive garlic-microbe feedback, reframing roots as a significant moderating influence in agricultural management and shaping the microbial community.

Genome-wide analysis of the Aquaporin gene family in reptiles.

Aquaporin (AQP) genes are widely distributed in plants, unicellular organisms, invertebrates and vertebrates. They play a critical role in the transport of water and other solutes across cell membranes. AQP genes have been identified and studied in many species but the AQPs of reptiles are unknown. Newly obtained genome assemblies provide an opportunity to identify the complete AQPs set and explore the evolutionary relationship of these genes. A total of 212 putative AQP genes were identified from 18 reptile species, including 20 partial genes and 192 intact genes. Phylogenetic results showed that 193 AQP genes could be classified into three major clades according to their subfamily. The divergence or phylogenetic distance between reptile AQP genes was closely related to traditional taxonomic groupings. Evolutionary analysis indicated the presence of positively selected sites in the AQP3 (P = 0.0104⁎⁎) and AQP7 (P = 0.0202⁎⁎) among land reptiles, suggesting their relationship to terrestrial environment adaptation.