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Plant Soil (2009) 317:213221 DOI 10.1007/s11104-008-9803-1
REGULAR ARTICLE
Assessing the effect of air-drying and storage on microbial biomass and community structure in paddy soils
Yueyan Liu & Huaiying Yao & Changyong Huang
Received: 13 May 2008 /Accepted: 4 October 2008 /Published online: 29 October 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract To understand the effect of air-drying pre-treatment, refrigeration, and freezing storages on microbial biomass and community structure in paddy soils, we measured total phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) and PLFA profile after five treatments, including flooded (F), flooded-freezing (FF), flooded-air-drying (FAD), flooded-air-drying-freezing (FADF), and flooded-air-drying-refrigeration (FADR). FF and FADF treatments were followed by freeze-drying before analyzing the total PLFA and PLFA profile. The results showed that FF and FADF treatments increased the content of polyunsaturated fatty acids, but decreased that of branched chain saturated fatty acids. FAD treatment increased the concentrations of bacterial, aerobic bacterial, stress, Type I methanotrophs, and Gram-negative bacterial biomarkers, while it decreased the concentration of hydroxy fatty acid group and the ratios of cyclopropyl saturated fatty acids to their monoenoic precursors. FADR significantly decreased the concentration of total PLFA and all PLFA groups except for the monounsaturated fatty acid group. Statistical analysis with correspondence analysis showed that air-drying and
storage changed the microbial community structure, but the effect of air-drying on soil microbial community structure was more pronounced than that of freezing. These results indicated that deep freezing followed by freeze-drying may be the most recommendable procedure before soil biochemical analysis in flooded paddy soils.
Keywords Air-drying and storage .
Microbial community structure . Paddy soil . Total PLFA
Introduction
Soil biochemical and biological properties are useful indicators for soil quality as they are very sensitive to environmental changes (Bending et al. 2004; Xue et al. 2006). Although air-drying is widely used for pre-treatment in flooded paddy soil, the influence of air-drying handling on soil biochemical and biological changes is often ignored. In fact, obtaining a truly representative sample of the soil is not a simple task. Zornoza et al. (2006, 2007) found that air-drying pre-treatment affected soil microbial biomass, basal respiration, metabolic quotient, soluble carbon, and enzyme activities in semiarid zone soils. However, it is necessary to present a test on soil samples of original condition before...