Contrasting response of fungal versus bacterial residue accumulation within soil aggregates to long-term fertilization

Soil microorganisms are critical for soil carbon (C) cycling. They primarily regulate the turnover of the soil organic C (SOC) by adjusting their community structure, and contributing residues with a considerable amount to the resistant SOC. Nevertheless, how long-term fertilization (e.g., the combination of manure and chemical fertilizer) affects the spatial distribution of both living microbial communities and dead microbial residue within soil aggregate fractions remains largely unclear. In this study, we analyzed changes in microbial community (lipid biomarkers) and microbial residue retention (amino sugar biomarkers), and also calculated the contribution of microbial residue to organic C in bulk soil and different soil aggregates (> 2 mm, 1–2 mm, 0.25–1 mm, and < 0.25 mm) in Alfisols treated with 29 years fertilization or no fertilization (control). Our results showed that long-term fertilization significantly increased the mean weight diameter (MWD) of aggregates and organic C contents in all aggregate fractions. The fertilization treatment increased the contents of PLFAs and microbial residue C, but the relative contribution of microbial residue to SOC was higher in the control (56.8% vs. 49.0%), due to the low SOC background caused by much lower level of non-microbially derived C input. These results suggested that long-term fertilization could increase SOC by accumulating both plant- and microbial-derived C, while the C deficient soil is more dependent on the accumulation of microbial residues. Long-term fertilization promoted the enrichment of bacterial-derived muramic acid in micro aggregates, but increased the proportion of fungal-derived glucosamine in macro aggregates. Meanwhile, the contribution of bacterial residue to organic C in the fertilization treatment was higher in micro aggregates (7.6% for > 2 mm vs. 9.2% for < 0.25 mm aggregate), while the contribution of fungal residue was higher in macro aggregate fractions (40.9% for > 2 mm vs. 35.7% for < 0.25 mm aggregate). The above results indicated that long-term fertilization could drive the differentiation of heterogeneous microbial residue accumulation patterns that significantly alter the contribution of fungal- versus bacterial-derived C to organic C within soil aggregate fractions.