Influence of biological aggregating agents associated with microbial population on soil aggregate stability

In this study, we investigated the effects of plant residue decomposition and biological aggregating agents (microbial extracellular polysaccharides and fungal hyphae) on soil aggregate stability and determined the microbial population at different stages of soil aggregate stabilization. Experiments were conducted in a 40 days incubation period with the following six treatments: the control (soil only), soil + fungicide, soil + bactericide, soil + maize residues, soil + maize residues + fungicide, and soil + maize residues + bactericide. The maize residues treatments greatly enhanced the formation of macroaggregates. In the residue treatments, the addition of fungicide led to a significant suppression of fungal biomass and activity as well as a reduction of soil aggregate stability, which demonstrated the profound influence of fungal activity on aggregate formation. The addition of bactericide also significantly reduced soil aggregate stability, indicating that bacterial activity also played an important role in the macroaggregate formation. However, the effect of microbial extracellular polysaccharides on soil aggregate stability was not significant, which might be attributable to the fast wet sieving method used for aggregate separation. For the treatments of soil + residues and soil + residues + bactericide, the temporal variations of soil aggregate formation with two peak values suggested that other factors, such as hydrophobic compounds and phenolic acids, might be involved in the soil aggregate stabilization process.

Research highlights▶ The roles of fungi and bacteria in soil aggregation were demonstrated with addition of antibiotics. ▶ Fungi played a more profound role in soil aggregation than bacteria. ▶ A low-energy stress method is necessary to analyze the effects of bacteria on soil aggregation.