Organic fertilization enhances the resistance and resilience of soil microbial communities under extreme drought

INTRODUCTION: The soil bacterial microbiome plays a crucial role in ecosystem functioning. The composition and functioning of the microbiome are tightly controlled by the physicochemical surrounding. Therefore, the microbiome is responsive to management, such as fertilization, and to climate change, such as extreme drought. It remains a challenge to retain microbiome functioning under drought. OBJECTIVES: This work aims to reveal if fertilization with organic fertilizer, can enhance resistance and resilience of bacterial communities and their function in extreme drought and subsequent rewetting compared with conventional fertilizers. METHODS: In soil mesocosms, we induced a long-term drought for 80 days with subsequent rewetting for 170 days to follow bacterial community dynamics in organic (NOF) and chemical (NCF) fertilization regimes. RESULTS: Our results showed that bacterial diversity was higher with NOF than with NCF during drought. In particular, the ecological resilience and recovery of bacterial communities under NOF were higher than in NCF. We found these bacterial community features to enhance pathogen-inhibiting functions in NOF compared to NCF during late recovery. The other soil ecology functional analyses revealed that bacterial biomass recovered in the early stage after rewetting, while soil respiration increased continuously following prolonged time after rewetting. CONCLUSION: Together, our study indicates that organic fertilization can enhance the stability of the soil microbiome and ensures that specific bacterial-driven ecosystem functions recover after rewetting. This may provide the basis for more sustainable agricultural practices to counterbalance negative climate change-induced effects on soil functioning.