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The cycling of especially large size organic nitrogen (N) from plants into stable microbial derived soil organic carbon (C) and N pools is understudied, in spite of organic N composing 90% of soil N and the intimate link between organic N and soil C stabilization. We investigated the fate of peptide-size and protein-size organic N fractions in soils from two long-term field experiments markedly differing in conditions for microorganisms. We combined amino acid stable isotope probing (AA-SIP) fingerprinting with PLFA-SIP to trace organic N into the soil microbial biomass. Contrary to the present paradigm, we found for both soils that greater molecular size did not protect against decomposition of these compounds neither did protection via strong sorption to the soil mineral phase. Instead, we found strong evidence that gram-positive bacteria are the key actors in the decomposition of protein-sized nitrogen compounds and that amino acids bound in large organic nitrogen compounds directly contribute to the build-up of bacterial tissue. We conclude that when large organic nitrogen compounds are dissolved, turnover occurs rapidly, irrespective of molecular size, and the bacterial incorporation of these rapid cycling compounds makes an important contribution to soil organic matter formation.

Gram-positive bacteria control the rapid anabolism of protein-sized soil organic nitrogen compounds questioning the present paradigm