Deep soil microbial carbon metabolic function is important but often neglected: a study on the Songnen Plain reed...

Soil microbial carbon metabolism is critical in wetland soil carbon cycling, and is also a research hotspot at present. However, most studies focus on the surface soil layer in the wetlands and the microorganisms associated with this layer. In this study, 0-75 cm soil profiles were collected from five widely separated reed wetlands in the Songnen Plain, which has a large number of middle-high latitude inland saline-sodic wetlands. The Biolog-ECO method was used to determine the carbon metabolic activity and functional diversity of soil microorganisms. The results showed that soil carbon metabolic activity decreased with increasing soil depth. The carbon metabolic activity of soil microorganisms in the 60-75 cm layer was approximately 57.41%-74.60% of that in the 0-15 cm layer. The soil microbial Shannon index and utilization rate of amines decreased with an increase in soil depth, while the Evenness index and utilization rate of polymers tended to increase with soil depth. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is the most important factor affecting microbial carbon source utilization preference, because microorganisms mainly obtain the carbon source from DOC. The result of the correlation analysis showed that the soil microbial carbon metabolic activity, Shannon index, and Evenness index significantly correlated with soil total carbon (TC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), DOC, total nitrogen (TN), ammonium nitrogen (NH₄ ⁺-N), nitrate nitrogen (NO₃ ^--N) contents, and electrical conductivity (EC). This study emphasized the important role of microbial carbon metabolic function in deep soil.