Effect of lime application on microbial community in acidic tea orchard soils in comparison with those in wasteland and forest soils

Lime application is a conventional technology to control acidification in tea orchard soils. We investigated the effect of lime application on soil microbial community diversity in the soils of three tea orchards, wasteland and forest. The BIOLOG data showed that both the average well color development of all carbon sources and the functional diversity index increased with the liming rate in the tea orchards and the forest, but decreased in the wasteland. The phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis showed that the structural diversity index of soil microbial community increased with the liming rate in all the tea orchards, the wasteland and the forest. Lime application also increased the soil-bacterial PLFA content in all the soils. Soil fungal and actinomycete PLFAs in the tea orchards showed an increasing trend from 0 to 3.2 g CaCO3/kg application and then a decreasing trend from 3.2 to 6.4 g CaCO3/kg application. The principal component analysis of BIOLOG and PLFA data suggested that lime application had a significant effect on soil microbial community structure, and land use had a greater effect on soil microbial community structure compared to lime application.