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

Lime application is a conventional technology to control acidification in tea orchard soils. We investigated the e ect of limeapplication on soil microbial community diversity in the soils of three tea orchards, wasteland and forest. The BIOLOG data showedthat both the average well color development of all carbon sources and the functional diversity index increased with the liming rate inthe tea orchards and the forest, but decreased in the wasteland. The phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis showed that the structuraldiversity index of soil microbial community increased with the liming rate in all the tea orchards, the wasteland and the forest. Limeapplication also increased the soil-bacterial PLFA content in all the soils. Soil fungal and actinomycete PLFAs in the tea orchardsshowed 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 e ect on soil microbialcommunity structure, and land use had a greater e ect on soil microbial community structure compared to lime application.