Research in Rhizosphere Priming Effect

Release Time:2017-06-29 Big Small

Rhizosphere Priming Effect is defined as phenomenon of changes in decomposition rate of soil organic matter by the activity of rhizosphere. The research results were controversial. The evaluated effect was from 50% decrease to 3.8 times increase in the decomposition rate. This is corresponding to the extent of effect of temperature and soil moisture.

The worker in research group of Underground Ecological Process and coworkers, led by Prof CHENG Weixin did meta-analyses on 31 publications. The analyses show that the rhizosphere priming effect increased 59% of the decomposition rate of soil organic matter. The strength of the effect show that woody plant> herbaceous plant> crops. The finer the soil texture, the stronger the priming effect. The effect strength is positively correlated to the above-ground rather than below-ground biomass of the concerned plant. The priming effect increased with the length of the experiment duration which implies that the RPE may persist much longer than previously believed because it impacts stabilized soil carbon more than labile carbon as the length of experimental duration increases.

The analyses published in Soil Biology & Biochemistry entitled as Rizosphere Piming Effect: A Mta-Aalysis.

The work was supported by CAS Pilot project B, 973 project and NNSFC.