Abstract
Abstract Cover cropping is an effective method to protect agricultural soils from erosion, promote nutrient and moisture retention, encourage beneficial microbial activity, and maintain soil structure. Re-utilization of winter cover crop root channels by maize roots during summer allows the cash crop to extract resources from distal regions in the soil horizon. In this study, we investigated how cover cropping during winter followed by maize (Zea mays L.) during summer affects the spatiotemporal composition and function of the bacterial communities in the maize rhizosphere and surrounding soil samples using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) gene amplicon sequencing, and metaproteomics. We found that the bacterial community differed significantly among cover crop species, soil depths, and maize growth stages. Bacterial abundance increased in reused root channels, and it continued to increase as cover crop diversity changed from monocultures to mixtures. Mixing Fabaceae with Brassicaceae or Poaceae enhanced the overall contributions of several steps of the bacterial carbon and nitrogen cycles, especially glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway. The deeper root channels of Fabaceae and Brassicaceae as compared to Poaceae corresponded to higher bacterial 16S rRNA gene copy numbers and improved community presence in the subsoil regimes, likely due to the increased availability of root exudates secreted by maize roots. In conclusion, root channel reuse improved the expression of metabolic pathways of the carbon and nitrogen cycles and the bacterial communities, which is beneficial to the soil and to the growing crops.
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Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Bacterial community differed significantly across cover species, depth and maize stage.
- Outcome
- bacterial communitye0
Zea maysOrganisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the bacterial community differed significantly among cover crop species, soil depths, and maize growth stages.”
Claim · model-written summary
Bacterial abundance increased in reused root channels.
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Bacterial abundance increased in reused root channels”
t0“maize”
Claim · model-written summary
Bacterial abundance increased as cover crop diversity changed to mixtures.
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“it continued to increase as cover crop diversity changed from monocultures to mixtures.”
t0“maize”
Claim · model-written summary
Mixing cover crop families enhanced bacterial carbon and nitrogen cycles.
- Treatment
- Mixing Fabaceae with Brassicaceae or Poaceaee0
- Outcome
- overall contributions of several steps of the bacterial carbon and nitrogen cyclese0
- Direction
- enhancede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Mixing Fabaceae with Brassicaceae or Poaceae enhanced the overall contributions of several steps of the bacterial carbon and nitrogen cycles, especially glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway.”
t0“maize”
Claim · model-written summary
Deeper channels corresponded to higher bacterial 16S copies and subsoil presence.
- Outcome
- bacterial 16S rRNA gene copy numbers and improved community presence in the subsoil regimese0
- Direction
- highere0
- Comparator
- Poaceaee0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The deeper root channels of Fabaceae and Brassicaceae as compared to Poaceae corresponded to higher bacterial 16S rRNA gene copy numbers and improved community presence in the subsoil regimes”
t0“maize”
Claim · model-written summary
Root-channel reuse improved bacterial pathway expression.
- Treatment
- root channel reusee0
- Outcome
- expression of metabolic pathways of the carbon and nitrogen cyclese0
- Direction
- improvede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“root channel reuse improved the expression of metabolic pathways of the carbon and nitrogen cycles and the bacterial communities”
t0“maize”