J Plant Ecol ›› Advance articles     DOI:10.1093/jpe/rtag180

• Research Article •     Next Articles

Nitrogen-mineralizing community in the rice rhizosphere exhibits greater resilience than that of maize and wheat in response to elevated CO2 and temperature

Lizheng Gao1,2, Yansheng Li1, Rui fang1, Zihao Liu3, Zhihuang Xie4, Jinyuan Zhang1, Guanghua Wang1, Xiaobing Liu1, Mikhail Semenov5, Ashley E Franks6,7, Caixian Tang8, Jian Jin1,8, Zhenhua Yu1*   

  1. 1. Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harbin 150081, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
    3. College of Life and Environment Sciences, Huangshan University, Huangshan 245041, China
    4. Engineering Research Center of Soil Remediation of Fujian Province University, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
    5. Laboratory of Soil Carbon and Microbial Ecology, Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute, Moscow 119017, Russian Federation
    6. Department of Microbiology, Anatomy Physiology and Pharmacology, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3086, Australia
    7. Centre for Future Landscapes, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3086, Australia
    8. La Trobe Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food, Department of Ecological, Plant and Animal Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne Campus, Bundoora, Vic 3086, Australia
    *Corresponding author: Zhenhua Yu, yuzhenhua@iga.ac.cn, Haping Road 138#, Harbin, China
  • Received:2025-12-15 Accepted:2026-07-15 Published:2026-08-01
  • Supported by:
    This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42177435, 32172123), International Partnership Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (131323KYSB20210004) and CAS Scholarship.

Abstract: Climate change, characterized by rising CO2 concentrations and warming, impacts soil microbial processes regulating nitrogen (N) availability for crops. This study aimed to elucidate the responses to elevated CO2 and warming of rhizosphere microbial communities involved in N mineralization under major cereal crops. A controlled pot experiment was conducted in open-top chambers with four treatments: ambient conditions (Control), elevated CO2 (700 ppm), warming (2°C above ambient), and their combination. Maize, wheat, and rice were grown in a Mollisol for 92 days. Functional microbial communities were characterized by sequencing of the chiA and pepA genes, which encode key enzymes involved in chitin and peptide degradation, respectively. Principal coordinate and network analyses revealed distinct, crop-specific microbial assemblages and responses to climate factors. Rice rhizosphere communities exhibited significantly greater functional resilience under elevated CO2 and warming compared with those of maize and wheat. This resilience may be attributed to anaerobic conditions of flooded rice paddies, which buffer temperature and moisture fluctuations and promote microbial functional redundancy, enabling species replacement as a primary adaptive response. In contrast, dryland systems (maize and wheat) showed higher sensitivity, with disrupted microbial networks, lower abundance of key taxa, and greater variability in predicted N mineralization potential. These findings highlight that crop-specific rhizosphere environments shape the resilience of N-cycling microbiomes under climate change. The study provides practical implications for N-fertilizer management and the design of climate-resilient cropping systems that maintain soil N supply in a warming and CO2-enriched climate.

Under climate change, the response of rhizosphere nitrogen-mineralizing microbial communities differs across crop species, exhibiting pronounced crop-specificity. Compared with maize and wheat, the rhizosphere nitrogen-mineralizing microbial community of rice demonstrates greater functional resilience, whereas the microbial networks of upland crops are more susceptible to disturbance. This suggests that the rhizosphere environment may serve as a key factor in determining the adaptive capacity of nitrogen-cycling microorganisms to climate change.