Ni Bang, Xiao Lu, Lin Da, Zhang Tian-Lun, Zhang Qi, Liu Yanjie, Chen Quan, Zhu Dong, Qian Haifeng, Rillig Matthias C, Zhu Yong-Guan
Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Ningbo Urban Environment Observation and Research Station, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China.
Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Urban Environmental Processes and Pollution Control, Chinese Academy of Sciences Haixi Industrial Technology Innovation Center in Beilun, Ningbo 315830, China.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Jan 14;122(2):e2419917122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2419917122. Epub 2025 Jan 9.
Pesticide application is essential for stabilizing agricultural production. However, the effects of increasing pesticide diversity on soil microbial functions remain unclear, particularly under varying nitrogen (N) fertilizer management practices. In this study, we investigated the stochasticity of soil microbes and multitrophic networks through amplicon sequencing, assessed soil community functions related to carbon (C), N, phosphorus (P), and sulfur (S) cycling, and characterized the dominant bacterial life history strategies via metagenomics along a gradient of increasing pesticide diversity under two N addition levels. Our findings show that higher pesticide diversity enriches the abundance of bacterial specialists and opportunists capable of degrading or resisting pesticides, reducing the proportion of bacterial generalists in the absence of N addition. These shifts can complicate multitrophic microbial networks. Under increased pesticide diversity, selective pressure may drive bacteria to streamline their average genome size to conserve energy while enhancing C, N, P, and S metabolic capacities, thus accelerating soil nutrient loss. In comparison, N addition was found to reduce bacterial niche differentiation at higher pesticide diversity, mitigating the impacts of network complexity and functional traits associated with pesticide diversity, ultimately alleviating soil nutrient loss. Our results reveal the contrasting impacts of pesticide diversity on microbial functions under different N input scenarios and emphasize that strategic N fertilizer management can mitigate the ecological effects of pesticide use in agricultural systems.
施用农药对于稳定农业生产至关重要。然而，增加农药多样性对土壤微生物功能的影响仍不明确，尤其是在不同的氮肥管理措施下。在本研究中，我们通过扩增子测序研究了土壤微生物和多营养网络的随机性，评估了与碳（C）、氮（N）、磷（P）和硫（S）循环相关的土壤群落功能，并通过宏基因组学沿着两个施氮水平下农药多样性增加的梯度，表征了优势细菌的生活史策略。我们的研究结果表明，较高的农药多样性丰富了能够降解或抵抗农药的细菌专性菌和机会主义菌的丰度，在不施氮的情况下降低了细菌泛化菌的比例。这些变化会使多营养微生物网络变得复杂。在农药多样性增加的情况下，选择压力可能会促使细菌简化其平均基因组大小以节约能量，同时增强C、N、P和S的代谢能力，从而加速土壤养分流失。相比之下，发现在较高的农药多样性下施氮会减少细菌生态位分化，减轻与农药多样性相关的网络复杂性和功能性状的影响，最终减轻土壤养分流失。我们的结果揭示了在不同氮输入情景下农药多样性对微生物功能的不同影响，并强调战略性氮肥管理可以减轻农业系统中农药使用的生态效应。
