Recently, Professor Shen Qirong's team from Nanjing Agricultural University, led by a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, published a research paper online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), revealing the long-term effects of chemical and organic fertilizers on the organic carbon metabolism of soil microbes, antibiotic resistance, and virus-host interactions.
The availability of organic carbon in soil is crucial for shaping soil microbial communities. However, the ecological and evolutionary consequences of microbial adaptation to different carbon levels remain unclear.
Soils treated solely with chemical fertilizers, due to the long-term lack of organic matter input, have created a carbon-deprived environment where microbes are in a state of "carbon starvation." The study found that this "carbon starvation" condition forces microbes to utilize more complex organic compounds and temporarily form mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships with soil viruses to enhance their environmental adaptability and competitive advantage in resource competition.
Moreover, during resource competition, the process of microbes producing antibiotics and antibiotic resistance to combat each other may pose a potential risk for the spread of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment. These research findings underscore the urgent need for sustainable soil management practices to mitigate the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance and to enhance soil carbon storage.
This research was supported by a major project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Related paper information: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2318160121
