Impact of a Single Lignite Humic Acid Application on Soil Properties and Microbial Dynamics in Aeolian Sandy Soils: A Fourth-Year Study in Semi-Arid Inner Mongolia
Authors: Zhou Lei , Chu Junqi , Zhang Yufen , Wang Qi , Liu Yanting , Zhao Baoping 
Published: November 2024

Humic acid (HA) is considered a promising soil amendment for improving soil fertility. However, the effects of HA application on the microbial community, especially in aeolian sandy soils of semi-arid regions, remain insufficiently elucidated. To address this gap, a field experiment was conducted to investigate the changes in soil properties, bacterial and fungal diversity, and community structure in a buckwheat field in the fourth year after a single application of lignite humic acid (L-HA) at 0 (L-HA0), 2 (L-HA1), 4 (L-HA2), and 6 (L-HA3) ton·ha−1 in an aeolian sandy soil in Inner Mongolia, China. The results demonstrated that four years after L-HA application, there was a significant (p < 0.05) decrease in soil pH, accompanied by an increase in soil water content and nutrient levels, including organic matter and total N, available P, and K. Additionally, the application of L-HA enhanced microbial biomass C and N and stimulated enzyme activities, such as urease and invertase, with these effects being more pronounced at higher application rates (L-HA2 and L-HA3). However, HA addition did not significantly (p < 0.05) affect soil microbial biomass P or alkaline phosphatase activity. The L-HA amendment enhanced the α-diversity indices of soil bacteria but did not significantly (p < 0.05) affect soil fungal diversity. The addition of L-HA induced significant changes in the composition of the soil microbial community at both the phylum and genus levels, with significant variability in microbial responses observed across the different L-HA application rates. The incorporation of L-HA notably enriched the composition of bacterial and fungal communities at the phylum level, particularly those involved in carbon cycling, including the bacterial phyla Proteobacteria and Actinobacteriota and the fungal phyla Ascomycota and Rozellomycota. At the genus level, higher L-HA application rates, specifically L-HA2 and L-HA3, exerted statistically significant (p < 0.05) effects on most bacterial and fungal genera. Specifically, these treatments increased the abundance of bacterial genera, such as Rokubacterium and fungal genera, including Plectosphaerella, Tausonia, Talaromyces, and Clonostachys. Conversely, the relative abundance of the bacterial genera Vicinamibacter and Subgroup_7, as well as the fungal genus Niesslia, was significantly reduced. Redundancy analysis (RDA) indicated that bacterial community compositions were closely associated with soil parameters, such as available P (AP), microbial biomass carbon (SMC), microbial biomass nitrogen (SMN), microbial biomass phosphorus (SMP), and invertase, while all tested soil parameters, except for alkaline phosphatase, significantly influenced the fungal community structure. Given that the changes in these soil parameters were highly correlated with the amounts of L-HA addition, this suggests that the impacts of long-term L-HA amendment on the soil bacterial and fungal communities were linked to alterations in soil physicochemical and biological properties.