Earthworm gut: An overlooked niche for anaerobic ammonium oxidation in agricultural soil

Abstract Soil fauna takes an active part in accelerating turnover of nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems. Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) has been widely characterized, however, whether anammox is active in earthworm gut and the effect of earthworm on anammox in soil remain unknown. In this study, the activity, abundance and community of anammox bacteria in earthworm guts and soils from microcosms were determined using a 15N-tracing technique, quantitative PCR, and anammox bacterial 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Results showed that anammox rates in guts ranged between 5.81 and 14.19 nmol N g−1 dw gut content h−1, which were significantly (P