Unraveling key environmental drivers and microbial key players in the rhizosphere of mature golf course putting greens

Abstract

Unraveling the role of environmental drivers and native microbial communities in sandy soils of golf course putting greens is imperative for more sustainable turf management practices. In this project, the soil rhizosphere microbial community of the Golf de Pals (Girona, Spain) putting greens is assessed in a chronosequence of 14- and 56-year-old greens. Note that 16S rRNA and ITS2 (where 16S rRNA is 16S ribosomal RNA and ITS is internal transcribed spacer) paired-end amplicon sequencing (16S-metabarcoding) was used to determine both the soil bacterial and fungal community, respectively, in a 2-year-long trial to determine microbial taxon richness, community composition, and abundances of taxa involved in N and C cycling and other plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium traits. The analysis of beta diversity showed a significant effect by the age and location. Main phyla were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria, Planctomycetota, and Desulfobacterota, with significant differences depending on the location of the putting green. Mantel test revealed that the environmental parameters with higher and significant contribution to soil microbial diversity were solar radiation—photosynthetic photon flux density and physicochemical parameters such as, in order of importance, soil moisture and temperature, electric conductivity, organic matter, organic carbon, NKjeldahl, NO3−, POlsen, PTotal, and sulfates. Main phyla significantly influenced by soil parameters were Crenarcheota, Acidobacteria, Desulfobacterota, Chloroflexi, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Gemmatimonodata, whereas FAPROTAX (Functional Annotation of Prokaryotic Taxa) assessment revealed that the main potential metabolic pathways associated with the most predominant microbial community were nitrite respiration, nitrous oxide denitrification, nitrite denitrification, denitrification, and dark sulfide oxidation and methanogenesis.