Combining field and laboratory approaches to quantify N assimilation in a soil microbe-plant-animal grazing land system

Michaela K Reay; Karina Marsden; Sarah  Powell; Dave Chadwick; Davey Jones; Richard P Evershed

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2022.108338

Combining field and laboratory approaches to quantify N assimilation in a soil microbe-plant-animal grazing land system

Michaela K Reay, Karina Marsden, Sarah Powell, Dave Chadwick, Davey Jones, Richard P Evershed

School of Chemistry

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Efficient fertiliser nitrogen (N) management is critical to global food production and ecosystem health. Considering sheep grazing systems as whole ecosystems, and quantifying key ecosystem services provided by the soil microbial community, including plant N supply and N pollution mitigation, is essential in assessments of N use efficiency (NUE). Using a systems approach, we disassembled a low-intensity sheep (>5 ewe ha−1) grazed grassland, dominated by Lolium perenne, into a series of interlinked 15N-tracer experiments in North Wales during a summer growing season to assess fertiliser-N partitioning. 15N was traced into soil microbial protein-N via compound-specific amino acid 15N-stable isotope probing, with subsequent integration to provide a whole-system perspective. Retention of feed-N into sheep was low (11 %), despite high grass 15N-fertiliser uptake (58 %). The majority of grazed-N re-entered the soil N-cycle as excreta (47 % of total 15N) during the peak growing season. Quantifying 15N-assimilation into soil microbial protein (0–15 cm) demonstrated the central role soil microbes occupy in capturing excess fertiliser (16 %) and urinary-N (8 %) of the total 15N-fertiliser applied, thereby reducing N losses and subsequently supporting plant N supply. This approach emphasises how future management of moderate intensity grazing systems should target sheep NUE, alongside the role of the soil microbial community to retain, and later recycle N, for plant supply, optimising essential ecosystem service provisioning.

Original language	English
Article number	108338
Journal	Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment
Volume	346
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2022.108338
Publication status	Published - 15 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
MKR, RPE and DLJ received funding from UK Natural Environment Research Council as part of the NERC large grant DOMAINE (Dissolved Organic Matter in Freshwater Ecosystems; NE/K010905/1 , and NE/K01093X/1 ). KAM, DRC and DLJ received funding from NERC under the grant award NE/M015351/1 (Uplands-N 2 O). Llinos Hughes and Mark Hughes are thanked for support at Henfaes Research station. Jonathon Pemberton, Miles Marshall, Gordon Inglis, Jon Holmberg, Emily Cooledge and Tom Pitman are thanked for assistance with field work and mesocosms. Fotis Sgouridis, Timothy Knowles and Paul Monaghan are thanked for assistance with analyses. Stable nitrogen isotope analysis of feeding experiment samples was undertaken at the Lancaster node of the LSMSF facility, funded by NERC. The authors wish to thank the NERC for partial funding of the National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF; contract no. NE/V003917/1) for compound-specific isotope analyses undertaken at the University Bristol and Ian Bull, Alison Kuhl and Helen Whelton are thanked for assistance with analyses. The authors wish to thank the HEFCE SRIF and the University of Bristol for funding the GC-IRMS capabilities.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

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title = "Combining field and laboratory approaches to quantify N assimilation in a soil microbe-plant-animal grazing land system",

abstract = "Efficient fertiliser nitrogen (N) management is critical to global food production and ecosystem health. Considering sheep grazing systems as whole ecosystems, and quantifying key ecosystem services provided by the soil microbial community, including plant N supply and N pollution mitigation, is essential in assessments of N use efficiency (NUE). Using a systems approach, we disassembled a low-intensity sheep (>5 ewe ha−1) grazed grassland, dominated by Lolium perenne, into a series of interlinked 15N-tracer experiments in North Wales during a summer growing season to assess fertiliser-N partitioning. 15N was traced into soil microbial protein-N via compound-specific amino acid 15N-stable isotope probing, with subsequent integration to provide a whole-system perspective. Retention of feed-N into sheep was low (11 %), despite high grass 15N-fertiliser uptake (58 %). The majority of grazed-N re-entered the soil N-cycle as excreta (47 % of total 15N) during the peak growing season. Quantifying 15N-assimilation into soil microbial protein (0–15 cm) demonstrated the central role soil microbes occupy in capturing excess fertiliser (16 %) and urinary-N (8 %) of the total 15N-fertiliser applied, thereby reducing N losses and subsequently supporting plant N supply. This approach emphasises how future management of moderate intensity grazing systems should target sheep NUE, alongside the role of the soil microbial community to retain, and later recycle N, for plant supply, optimising essential ecosystem service provisioning.",

author = "Reay, {Michaela K} and Karina Marsden and Sarah Powell and Dave Chadwick and Davey Jones and Evershed, {Richard P}",

note = "Funding Information: MKR, RPE and DLJ received funding from UK Natural Environment Research Council as part of the NERC large grant DOMAINE (Dissolved Organic Matter in Freshwater Ecosystems; NE/K010905/1 , and NE/K01093X/1 ). KAM, DRC and DLJ received funding from NERC under the grant award NE/M015351/1 (Uplands-N 2 O). Llinos Hughes and Mark Hughes are thanked for support at Henfaes Research station. Jonathon Pemberton, Miles Marshall, Gordon Inglis, Jon Holmberg, Emily Cooledge and Tom Pitman are thanked for assistance with field work and mesocosms. Fotis Sgouridis, Timothy Knowles and Paul Monaghan are thanked for assistance with analyses. Stable nitrogen isotope analysis of feeding experiment samples was undertaken at the Lancaster node of the LSMSF facility, funded by NERC. The authors wish to thank the NERC for partial funding of the National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF; contract no. NE/V003917/1) for compound-specific isotope analyses undertaken at the University Bristol and Ian Bull, Alison Kuhl and Helen Whelton are thanked for assistance with analyses. The authors wish to thank the HEFCE SRIF and the University of Bristol for funding the GC-IRMS capabilities. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors",

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AU - Marsden, Karina

AU - Powell, Sarah

AU - Chadwick, Dave

AU - Jones, Davey

AU - Evershed, Richard P

N1 - Funding Information: MKR, RPE and DLJ received funding from UK Natural Environment Research Council as part of the NERC large grant DOMAINE (Dissolved Organic Matter in Freshwater Ecosystems; NE/K010905/1 , and NE/K01093X/1 ). KAM, DRC and DLJ received funding from NERC under the grant award NE/M015351/1 (Uplands-N 2 O). Llinos Hughes and Mark Hughes are thanked for support at Henfaes Research station. Jonathon Pemberton, Miles Marshall, Gordon Inglis, Jon Holmberg, Emily Cooledge and Tom Pitman are thanked for assistance with field work and mesocosms. Fotis Sgouridis, Timothy Knowles and Paul Monaghan are thanked for assistance with analyses. Stable nitrogen isotope analysis of feeding experiment samples was undertaken at the Lancaster node of the LSMSF facility, funded by NERC. The authors wish to thank the NERC for partial funding of the National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF; contract no. NE/V003917/1) for compound-specific isotope analyses undertaken at the University Bristol and Ian Bull, Alison Kuhl and Helen Whelton are thanked for assistance with analyses. The authors wish to thank the HEFCE SRIF and the University of Bristol for funding the GC-IRMS capabilities. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

PY - 2023/5/15

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N2 - Efficient fertiliser nitrogen (N) management is critical to global food production and ecosystem health. Considering sheep grazing systems as whole ecosystems, and quantifying key ecosystem services provided by the soil microbial community, including plant N supply and N pollution mitigation, is essential in assessments of N use efficiency (NUE). Using a systems approach, we disassembled a low-intensity sheep (>5 ewe ha−1) grazed grassland, dominated by Lolium perenne, into a series of interlinked 15N-tracer experiments in North Wales during a summer growing season to assess fertiliser-N partitioning. 15N was traced into soil microbial protein-N via compound-specific amino acid 15N-stable isotope probing, with subsequent integration to provide a whole-system perspective. Retention of feed-N into sheep was low (11 %), despite high grass 15N-fertiliser uptake (58 %). The majority of grazed-N re-entered the soil N-cycle as excreta (47 % of total 15N) during the peak growing season. Quantifying 15N-assimilation into soil microbial protein (0–15 cm) demonstrated the central role soil microbes occupy in capturing excess fertiliser (16 %) and urinary-N (8 %) of the total 15N-fertiliser applied, thereby reducing N losses and subsequently supporting plant N supply. This approach emphasises how future management of moderate intensity grazing systems should target sheep NUE, alongside the role of the soil microbial community to retain, and later recycle N, for plant supply, optimising essential ecosystem service provisioning.

AB - Efficient fertiliser nitrogen (N) management is critical to global food production and ecosystem health. Considering sheep grazing systems as whole ecosystems, and quantifying key ecosystem services provided by the soil microbial community, including plant N supply and N pollution mitigation, is essential in assessments of N use efficiency (NUE). Using a systems approach, we disassembled a low-intensity sheep (>5 ewe ha−1) grazed grassland, dominated by Lolium perenne, into a series of interlinked 15N-tracer experiments in North Wales during a summer growing season to assess fertiliser-N partitioning. 15N was traced into soil microbial protein-N via compound-specific amino acid 15N-stable isotope probing, with subsequent integration to provide a whole-system perspective. Retention of feed-N into sheep was low (11 %), despite high grass 15N-fertiliser uptake (58 %). The majority of grazed-N re-entered the soil N-cycle as excreta (47 % of total 15N) during the peak growing season. Quantifying 15N-assimilation into soil microbial protein (0–15 cm) demonstrated the central role soil microbes occupy in capturing excess fertiliser (16 %) and urinary-N (8 %) of the total 15N-fertiliser applied, thereby reducing N losses and subsequently supporting plant N supply. This approach emphasises how future management of moderate intensity grazing systems should target sheep NUE, alongside the role of the soil microbial community to retain, and later recycle N, for plant supply, optimising essential ecosystem service provisioning.

U2 - 10.1016/j.agee.2022.108338

DO - 10.1016/j.agee.2022.108338

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

SN - 0167-8809

VL - 346

JO - Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

JF - Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

M1 - 108338

ER -

Combining field and laboratory approaches to quantify N assimilation in a soil microbe-plant-animal grazing land system

Abstract

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