Research PaperAlteration of soil bacterial interaction networks driven by different long-term fertilization management practices in the red soil of South China

- Bacterial communities operate better in higher-productivity soils.
- Networks of higher-productivity soils contain more module hubs.
- Soil environmental conditions altered the topological roles of OTUs.
- Module hubs could be indicators of soil productivity.

Interactions among soil bacteria occur widely and play important roles in the maintenance of soil functions. Long-term fertilization management practices have distinct effects on soil fertility and the soil microbial activity and community, which are closely associated with soil microbial interactions. Red soil is typically low-productivity soil in South China. Chemical nitrogen fertilization caused serious soil acidification and low-productivity (defined as the acidified soil group, Ac), whereas the application of lime to the acidified soil increased the soil pH (defined as the quicklime improvement soil group, Qlime). Long-term manure or fallow treatment maintained the soil pH and increased the soil fertility (defined as the high-productivity potential soil group, HPP). A molecular ecological network analysis method was used to analyze 454 pyrosequencing data of bacterial communities from the HPP, Ac and Qlime soils. Several major differences were observed among the three constructed networks. First, the HPP network contained the largest ratio of positive to negative correlations, whereas the Ac network contained the smallest. Second, the HPP and Ac networks shared only 8.67% of their operational taxonomic units (OTUs), whereas Ac and Qlime shared 27.04%. Third, the HPP network contained the most “module hubs” (A set of OTUs that have strong interactions or common functions are grouped as a “module” in network analysis. These OTUs are called “nodes”. And the nodes with high connectivity to many other nodes within the same module are “module hubs”.), whereas Ac contained the fewest. These results demonstrated that the bacterial community of HPP was a better organized or a better operated community than Ac and that quicklime application helped to order the bacterial community. By comparing the topological roles of nodes in different networks, we proposed that there should be more module hubs in the networks of higher-productivity soils and hypothesized that these OTUs could be indicators of high-productivity.