The Impact of Land Use on Bacterial Community Composition and Physicochemical Properties of Soil

Ghobad Jalali¹, Amir Lakzian^1*, Alireza Astaraei¹, Aliakbar Haddad-Mashadrizeh², Mehdi Azadvar³ and Eisa Esfandiarpour⁴

¹Department of Soil Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran.

²Department of Biology,Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran.

³Department of Plant Protection, South Kerman Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Iran.

⁴Department of Soil Science, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Iran.

Corresponding Author E-mail: alakzian@um.ac.ir-alakzian@yahoo.com

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/2380

ABSTRACT: In order to determine the effects of land useon bacterial community composition and some physicochemical properties of soil, a study was carried out in three different land uses (orchard, farm and shrub) in arid-region soils located in southeast of Iran. The selected land uses were adjacent to each other and have not been changed in 50 recent years. Three samples of surface soil were collected from each land use and the bacterial community composition of soil was assessed using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Moreover, some physicochemical soil characteristics were investigated. The results showed that significant differences exist among all of the physicochemical soil characteristics in different land uses. Higher values of organic carbon, N, P, K, EC, clay, silt, CaCO₃, Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu and lower values of pH and sand occurred in the agricultural lands (orchard and farm) than shrub land. The results of principal component analysis showed that land use can affect soil properties. Furthermore, results of canonical correspondence analysis showed that the variability in bacterial community composition was related to the selected soil characteristics. Clay and CaCO₃, sand, and OC, total N and EC were shown to be the most significant properties affecting the bacterial community composition in orchard, shrub and farm land uses, respectively. Generally, the findings of the present study showed that agricultural activities not only did not cause a reduction in species richness, but also resulted in a significant increase in the mentioned indices in orchard and farm land uses compared to shrub land use.

KEYWORDS: Arid-region; Land use; soil bacteria; soil characteristics; DGGE; PCA; CCA

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