• ISSN 1008-505X
  • CN 11-3996/S
LI Huan, DU Zhi-yong, LIU Qing, SHI Yan-xi. Effect of earthworm-mycorrhiza interaction on soil enzyme activities, root growth and nutrients uptake of sweet potato[J]. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Fertilizers, 2016, 22(1): 209-215. DOI: 10.11674/zwyf.14428
Citation: LI Huan, DU Zhi-yong, LIU Qing, SHI Yan-xi. Effect of earthworm-mycorrhiza interaction on soil enzyme activities, root growth and nutrients uptake of sweet potato[J]. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Fertilizers, 2016, 22(1): 209-215. DOI: 10.11674/zwyf.14428

Effect of earthworm-mycorrhiza interaction on soil enzyme activities, root growth and nutrients uptake of sweet potato

  • 【Objectives】 Earthworms and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are in different trophic levels in food chain, but they play similar roles in promoting plant growth and soil biological fertility. Most researches have been focused on particular group of soil organisms, ferwer on underground interactions and functional diversities of various soil microorganisms as well as on soil macrofauna. Investigations in these fields are necessary to explore the potentiality of soil organisms for sustainable development of agriculture.【Methods】A pot experiment was conducted using sweet potato as test materials in a greenhouse. A completely randomized block design with a 22 factorial arrangement of treatments was established. The two factors, AM fungi and earthworms were used, and each factor has two levels. The detail treatments include: Neither earthworm nor mycorrhizae addition (CK), earthworm addition (E), mycorrhizal addition (AM), and both earthworms and mycorrhizae addition (AM+E). The growth and nutrient uptake of sweet potato, and the availability of soil nutrients were investigated. The relationships between treatments were tested by Pearson's correlation analyses. The redundancy analysis (RDA) was performed by using the Canoco version 4.5 software package to describe the relationship between soil fauna and flora.【Results】AM fungi increased sweet potato shoot and root biomass; addition of earthworms alone significantly (P0.05) increased sweet potato shoot biomass. The AM+E treatment significantly improved sweet potato growth and higher than other three treatments (P0.05). Inoculation with AM fungi significantly (P0.01) increased the activity of soil alkaline phosphatase, but decreased the concentrations of available phosphorus in soil at harvest stage. Addition of earthworms significantly increased the activity of soil urease (from 5.45 to 8.71 mg NH+4-N/g) and soil ammonium-N concentrations (from 5.82 to 6.89 mg/kg)( P0.05). AM fungi increased sweet potato shoot weight and root P content, while earthworms improved N and P contents in shoots. The RDA analysis showed that AM fungi and earthworm exist significant positive interaction effects on shoot and root nitrogen and phosphorus contents, root surface area, root volume, root diameter and root tips. Interaction between AM fungi and earthworm increased sweet potato shoot and root biomass through the pathway regulating soil enzyme activities and N and P availabilities.【Conclusions】 This study sheds light on the possibility to improve plant nutrient uptake by regulating soil biological processes with earthworms and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, indicating that the potential for soil biological fertility in the sustainable agricultural system could be realized by utilization earthworms and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
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