The research group headed by Wang Chuankuan, a professor in the biological center in NEFU, uncovered the fact of patterns and mechanisms of responses by soil microbial communities to nitrogen addition through simulating nitrogen addition in the national field station of Mao’er mountain Forest Ecosystem in Heilongjiang province, and integrating analysis of global nitrogen deposition artificial simulation, which will play an important role in promoting global nitrogen deposition. The results of this research were published in Soil Science and Biochemistry (IFA 4.857) and Biology and Fertility of Soils (IFA = 3.683), respectively. They are entitled Patterns and mechanisms of responses by soil microbial communities to nitrogen addition," and "Stoichiometric responses of soil microflora to nutrient additions for two temperate forest soils. "

Nitrogen deposition is one of the major forms of global change. Since the middle of last century, with the proliferation of human activities such as fossil fuels combustion, the production and application of chemical fertilizers and the development of animal husbandry, the anthropogenic nitrogen compounds released to the atmosphere have increased sharply. This caused a surge of atmospheric nitrogen deposition worldwide and a trend of continuous increase, which will seriously affect the structure and function of the terrestrial ecosystems. According to the primary author of the paper, Zhou Zhenghu (PhD student) and the corresponding author of the paper, Professor Wang Chuankuan, by focusing on the research topic of the interaction between global change and terrestrial ecosystem, through the method of simulation experiments and integration analysis, the research team found that nitrogen deposition affects the enzyme activity of soil microorganisms mainly through reducing the ratio of bacteria and fungi and increasing the composition of microbial communities such as the ratio of Gram-positive bacteria and negative bacteria, and thus changes the soil carbon and nitrogen cycle and the associated ecosystem processes. This series of studies amends the viewpoints of nitrogen deposition previously thought by scholars mainly as reducing soil acidity and then inhibiting the growth of microorganisms, and points out some limitations in the current global simulation of nitrogen deposition. These achievements have important theoretical and practical significance for the study of microbial ecology and global change ecology.

This research has been supported by the “12th Five-Year Plan” scientific and technological support project, the plan for the development of the Yangtze River Scholar and Innovation Team of the Ministry of Education and the special fund for basic scientific research of the Central Universities.