Comparative soil distribution and dissipation of phoxim and thiamethoxam and their efficacy in controlling Bradysia odoriphaga Yang and Zhang in Chinese chive ecosystems

Bradysia odoriphaga Yang and Zhang (the chive gnat) is the major insect pest affecting Chinese chives (Allium tuberosum Rottl. ex Spreng.) in Northern China. Only three insecticide products are registered for its control. In the present study, we compared the persistence and distribution of thiamethoxam and phoxim in soil and determined their long-acting control effects against B. odoriphaga and two other secondary pests, Thrips alliorum Priesner and the Asiatic onion leaf miner Acrolepia alliella Semenov and Kuznetsov (Lepidoptera: Acrolepiidae), after a single soil application using the directional spray-washing method during the early Chinese chive root-rearing period. Under the same applied dosage, the rhizosphere soil at a depth of 4.0–10.0 cm had concentrations of thiamethoxam and phoxim ranging from 2.21 to 7.44 mg/kg and 0.09–0.44 mg/kg, respectively, at the 7th day after application. The half-lives of thiamethoxam and phoxim in the soil were 27.5 and 6.7 days, respectively. Thiamethoxam persisted for 210 days, whereas phoxim only persisted for 45 days in the soil and plants. In addition, thiamethoxam applied at 6.0 kg a.i./ha maintained a low population density of B. odoriphaga, T. alliorum and A. alliella for nine months longer than phoxim. In conclusion, thiamethoxam may help farmers more effectively manage B. odoriphaga and other secondary pests on Chinese chive and reduce the costs of insecticide use while sustaining protection.     

烤烟套种甘薯对烟叶质量、烟薯产量及土壤温湿度的影响

为筛选出适宜与烤烟套种的甘薯品种,解决部分烟区烤烟种植调茬难度大与综合效益低等问题,通过田间大区试验,研究烤烟套种不同甘薯品种对烟叶质量、烟薯产量及土壤温湿度的影响。结果表明,烟薯套种能够明显提升土壤相对含水率和烟叶产量,其相对含水率提高幅度介于12.03%~91.88%,烤烟产量增幅为12.29%~31.26%。烤烟套种甘薯以紫薯产量最高,块根产量达29400 kg/hm ²,且单薯质量大于100 g占总薯重的比例在紫薯中最高。烤烟套种甘薯提升了烤烟中上部烟叶的总糖和还原糖含量,降低了烟碱和总氮含量,有利于改善烟叶内在品质。烤烟套种甘薯降低了上部烟叶含梗率,但增大了上部烟叶叶面密度,以烤烟套种紫薯表现突出。烤烟与紫薯套种,可作为一种烟田增产、烟叶增值和烟农增收的种植模式。     

Phosphorus availability and farm structural factors: examining scarcity and oversupply in north‐east Germany

Assessing factors influencing phosphorus (P) availability in soils is important in preventing its overexploitation and excessive application in agricultural systems. Despite high historical P applications in the federal state of Brandenburg (Germany), county data on soil test P (STP) reveal considerable disparities in soil available P. In addition, negative soil balances as a result of small mineral P and manure inputs have been observed, raising questions about the factors leading to this situation. Our work focused on identifying possible causes operating at the farm management level by conducting a letter survey in two administrative districts of Brandenburg, the counties Barnim and Uckermark, linking farm management factors (ownership type, farm size, land tenure, animal husbandry with or without grassland and its intensity, presence of a biogas plant and organic production) to farmers’ self‐indicated levels of STP. Small‐ to medium‐sized individual farms tended to have (very) high STP, while large partnership farms and companies/cooperatives were sensitive to factors resulting in low STP. Farms with low shares of land ownership, the presence of grassland, extensive cattle farming and stockless organic farming had lower STP. On the other hand, biogas plants, partly in combination with intensive livestock (cattle) farming, were associated with larger STP. It was concluded that more care should be devoted to the design of agricultural policies and that further (inter‐ and transdisciplinary) research on this topic is needed.     

Organic input quality is more important than its quantity: C turnover coefficients in different cropping systems

Annual C input to soil is a major factor affecting soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics. However different types of C-sources can have different behaviour, in relation to their chemical characteristics and how they interact with soil. Root-derived C, in particular, should be more efficient than other organic materials as a result of the physicochemical and biological characteristics of the surrounding environment, leading to a reduction in the C decomposition rate.To test this hypothesis, we considered a long-term experiment underway in Northern Italy since 1962, comparing permanent meadow and 6 different crop rotations over a wide range of nutrient inputs, in both organic and inorganic forms. C inputs from amendments were measured and those from crops were calculated using allometric functions and crop and residues yields. The time evolution of SOC was studied through a single-pool, first-order kinetic model, allowing the estimation of humification coefficients for residues, roots, farmyard manure and cattle slurries.The highest value of the humification coefficient was estimated for farmyard manure, which confirmed its high efficiency in stabilising SOC content. Root C presented a humification coefficient 1.9 times higher than above-ground plant materials while slurries were intermediate, with a humification coefficient roughly half that of farmyard manure and even lower that of roots.The quality of C input thus seems of fundamental importance for evaluating the sustainability of different cropping systems in terms of SOC dynamics.     

Strong functional stability of soil microbial communities under semiarid Mediterranean conditions and subjected to long-term shifts in baseline precipitation

We investigated the effect of soil microclimate on the structure and functioning of soil microbial communities in a Mediterranean Holm-oak forest subjected to 10 years of partial rain exclusion manipulations, simulating average drought conditions expected in Mediterranean areas for the following decades. We applied a high throughput DNA pyrosequencing technique coupled to parallel measurements of microbial respiration (R_H) and temperature sensitivity of microbial respiration (Q₁₀). Some consistent changes in the structure of bacterial communities suggest a slow process of community shifts parallel to the trend towards oligotrophy in response to long-term droughts. However, the structure of bacterial communities was mainly determined by short-term environmental fluctuations associated with sampling date (winter, spring and summer) rather than long-term (10 years) shifts in baseline precipitation. Moreover, long-term drought did not exert any chronic effect on the functioning of soil microbial communities (R_H and Q₁₀), emphasizing the functional stability of these communities to this long-term but mild shifts in water availability. We hypothesize that the particular conditions of the Mediterranean climate with strong seasonal shifts in both temperature and soil water availability but also characterized by very extreme environmental conditions during summer, was acting as a strong force in community assembling, selecting phenotypes adapted to the semiarid conditions characterizing Mediterranean ecosystems. Relations of climate with the phylogenetic structure and overall diversity of the communities as well as the distribution of the individual responses of different lineages (genera) to climate confirmed our hypotheses, evidencing communities dominated by thermotolerant and drought-tolerant phenotypes.     

Soil conditions and land use intensification effects on soil microbial communities across a range of European field sites

Intensive land use practices necessary for providing food and raw materials are known to have a deleterious effect on soil. However, the effects that such practices have on soil microbes are less well understood. To investigate the effects of land use intensification on soil microbial communities we used a combined T-RFLP and pyrosequencing approach to study bacteria, archaea and fungi in spring and autumn at five long term observatories (LTOs) in Europe; each with a particular land use type and contrasting levels of intensification (low and high). Generally, due to large gradients in soil variables, both molecular methods revealed that soil microbial communities were structured according to differences in soil conditions between the LTOs, more so than land use intensity. Moreover, variance partitioning analysis also showed that soil properties better explained the differences in microbial communities than land use intensity effects. Predictable responses in dominant bacterial, archaeal and fungal taxa to edaphic conditions (e.g. soil pH and resource availability) were apparent between the LTOs. Some effects of land use intensification at individual field sites were observed. However, these effects were manifest when land use change affected soil conditions. Uniquely, this study details the responses of different microbial groups to soil type and land use intensification, and their relative importance across a range of European field sites. These findings reinforce our understanding of drivers impacting soil microbial community structure at both field and larger geographic scales.     

基于近红外光谱的沼液挥发性脂肪酸含量快速检测

挥发性脂肪酸（Volatile Fatty Acids，VFA）作为厌氧发酵过程的重要中间产物，其在厌氧反应器中的累积能够反映出产甲烷菌的不活跃状态或厌氧发酵条件的恶化。为了实现对农牧废弃物厌氧发酵进行过程分析和状态监控，将近红外光谱（Near Infrared Spectroscopy，NIRS）与偏最小二乘（Partial Least Squares，PLS）相结合构建玉米秸秆和畜禽粪便厌氧发酵液乙酸、丙酸和总酸含量快速检测模型。将竞争自适应重加权采样法（Competitive Adaptive Reweighted Sampling，CARS）与遗传模拟退火算法（Genetic Simulated Annealing algorithm，GSA）相结合构建CARS-GSA算法对沼液中的乙酸、丙酸和总酸进行特征波长优选，原始光谱数据1 557个波长点经预处理和波长优选后，得到乙酸、丙酸和总酸特征波长变量分别为135、101和245个，建立的回归模型验证决定系数分别为0.988、0.923和0.886，预测均方根误差（Root Mean Squared Error of Prediction，RMSEP）分别为0.111、0.120和0.727，相对分析误差分别为9.685、3.685和3.484，与全谱建模相比RMSEP分别减少了17.78%、15.49%和1.22%，能够满足农牧废弃物厌氧发酵过程发酵液中乙酸和丙酸含量的快速检测需求，基本满足总酸的检测需求。结果表明，通过构建CARS-GSA算法优选乙酸、丙酸和总酸的敏感波长变量，参与建模的波长点数量显著减少，有效降低了变量维度和模型复杂度，提升了回归模型检测精度和预测能力，为快速准确检测沼液VFA提供了新途径。     

Soil biodiversity and DNA barcodes: opportunities and challenges

Soils encompass a huge diversity of organisms which mostly remains to be characterized due to a number of methodological and logistical issues. Nonetheless, remarkable progress has been made in recent years toward developing strategies to characterize and describe soil biodiversity, especially thanks to the development of molecular approaches relying on direct DNA extraction from the soil matrix.Metabarcoding can be applied to DNA from any environment or organism, and is gaining increasing prominence in biodiversity studies. This approach is already commonly used to characterize soil microbial communities and its application is now being extended to other soil organisms, i.e. meso- and macro-fauna.These developments offer unprecedented scientific and operational opportunities in order to better understand soil biodiversity distribution and dynamics, and to propose tools and strategies for biodiversity diagnosis. However, these opportunities also come with challenges that the scientific community must face. Such challenges are related to i) clarification of terminology, (ii) standardisation of methods and further methodological development for additional taxonomic groups, (iii) development of a common database, and (iv) ways to avoid waste of information and data derived from metabarcoding. In order to facilitate common application of metabarcoding in soil biodiversity assessment, we discuss these opportunities and challenges and propose solutions towards a more homogeneous framework.     

甘肃民乐栽培当归的品质与土壤相关性分析

本研究通过对民乐县种植的当归药材和种植土壤分别进行采样测定,结果表明民乐县人工种植当归的质量稳定,受重金属污染的风险低,符合药典标准规定。相关性分析结果表明:浸出物与土壤pH值呈极显著正相关,与有机质呈极显著负相关;阿魏酸与土壤pH值呈极显著正相关,与全磷呈显著负相关。挥发油与测定的土壤因子之间无显著相关性。灰色关联度分析结果表明:土壤pH是影响当归浸出物、挥发油的重要因子,土壤有机质是影响当归阿魏酸含量的重要因子;且磷、全氮和有机质对浸出物、挥发油、阿魏酸的影响程度不同。综上所述,本研究结果揭示了土壤因子对民乐县种植当归品质的影响规律,可为民乐县规范化种植当归药材提供理论依据。     

离子交换纤维对麦田土壤铅污染的修复效果

为探讨土壤Pb污染的治理方法,通过盆栽试验,比较了离子交换纤维的两种不同放置方式(分层放置与混匀放置)对麦田土壤Pb污染的修复效果。结果表明,在土壤1 000 mg·kg~(-1) Pb污染水平下,Pb污染处理(T1:Pb胁迫;T2:Pb+在土壤中分三层放置纤维;T3:Pb+在土壤中混匀剪碎的纤维)的土壤pH值、总有机碳含量较对照(CK:未添加Pb和离子交换纤维)有所降低。在小麦成熟期,T2、T3处理下土壤和植株各部位的Pb含量均低于T1处理,其中T3处理变化显著;T2、T3处理中纤维吸附的Pb含量则分别达到115.01和128.26 mg·kg~(-1)。T2、T3处理的Pb富集系数低于T1处理及CK。由此说明,离子交换纤维能够有效吸附土壤中的Pb,降低Pb从土壤向植株的转运能力,且离子交换纤维混匀放置方式的修复效果较好。