Cropping systems with higher organic carbon promote soil microbial diversity

2021 ◽  
Vol 319 ◽  
pp. 107521
Author(s):  
Keyvan Esmaeilzadeh-Salestani ◽  
Mohammad Bahram ◽  
Rahele Ghanbari Moheb Seraj ◽  
Daniyal Gohar ◽  
Masoud Tohidfar ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akari Kimura ◽  
Yoshitaka Uchida

AbstractBiodiversity loss is becoming a global concern due to its negative impact on services associated with the ecosystem. For agricultural soil to maintain these multi-services, the conservation of soil microbial diversity is of utmost importance. Mixed cropping systems involve the utilisation of multiple crop species on the field as well as the diversification of aboveground plants, although several contradicting results have been reported regarding their impacts on soil microbial diversity. Therefore, for the evaluation of the impact of different leguminous species used in mixed cropping systems as well as types of fertilizer on the diversity of soil microbes, a pot study was performed under maize/legume mixed cropping systems with one of three legumes, including cowpea (Vigna unguiculate (L.) Walp.), velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens (L.) DC.), and common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) as well as one of three types of fertilizer treatments, namely chemical fertilizer (CF), carbonised chicken manure (CM), or the lack of fertilizer (Ctr). 16S rRNA analyses were conducted using the soils sampled from each pot for soil bacterial diversity assessment. Concerning the results, a decrease in the microbial diversity after CM application was shown by the soil with velvet bean + maize (MM) when compared to the Ctr treatment, while an increase in the microbial diversity was shown by the soil with common bean + maize (PM) under the same condition. In case of the CM application, the abundance of treatment-unique bacteria increased in the PM treatment, although their decrease was observed for the MM treatment. In contrast, the abundance of dominant microbes, including Thaumarchaeota was significantly lower in PM but higher in MM when the CM was applied. Legume species-dependent factors, including nutrient absorption and root exudate composition might be important concerning soil bacterial diversities. For the conservation of soil microbial diversity with mixed cropping, the interaction effect of legume species and fertilizer type should be considered in future studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1400
Author(s):  
Marta Bertola ◽  
Andrea Ferrarini ◽  
Giovanna Visioli

Soil is one of the key elements for supporting life on Earth. It delivers multiple ecosystem services, which are provided by soil processes and functions performed by soil biodiversity. In particular, soil microbiome is one of the fundamental components in the sustainment of plant biomass production and plant health. Both targeted and untargeted management of soil microbial communities appear to be promising in the sustainable improvement of food crop yield, its nutritional quality and safety. –Omics approaches, which allow the assessment of microbial phylogenetic diversity and functional information, have increasingly been used in recent years to study changes in soil microbial diversity caused by agronomic practices and environmental factors. The application of these high-throughput technologies to the study of soil microbial diversity, plant health and the quality of derived raw materials will help strengthen the link between soil well-being, food quality, food safety and human health.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Bastida ◽  
David J. Eldridge ◽  
Carlos García ◽  
G. Kenny Png ◽  
Richard D. Bardgett ◽  
...  

AbstractThe relationship between biodiversity and biomass has been a long standing debate in ecology. Soil biodiversity and biomass are essential drivers of ecosystem functions. However, unlike plant communities, little is known about how the diversity and biomass of soil microbial communities are interlinked across globally distributed biomes, and how variations in this relationship influence ecosystem function. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a field survey across global biomes, with contrasting vegetation and climate types. We show that soil carbon (C) content is associated to the microbial diversity–biomass relationship and ratio in soils across global biomes. This ratio provides an integrative index to identify those locations on Earth wherein diversity is much higher compared with biomass and vice versa. The soil microbial diversity-to-biomass ratio peaks in arid environments with low C content, and is very low in C-rich cold environments. Our study further advances that the reductions in soil C content associated with land use intensification and climate change could cause dramatic shifts in the microbial diversity-biomass ratio, with potential consequences for broad soil processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 168 ◽  
pp. 104160
Author(s):  
Yang You ◽  
Jingfei Ren ◽  
Jing Wu ◽  
Zhouwen Ma ◽  
Yongchao Gu ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Boyuan Bi ◽  
Kun Wang ◽  
He Zhang ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Hongyan Fei ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Bebber ◽  
Victoria R. Richards

ABSTRACTThe Green Revolution of agriculture was in part driven by application of synthetic mineral fertilizers, largely supplanting organic manure as a source of the major nutrients nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK). Though enhancing crop production and global food security, fertilizers have contributed to soil acidification, eutrophication of water bodies, and greenhouse gas emissions. Organic agriculture, employing manures or composts, has been proposed as a way of mitigating these undesirable effects. Of particular interest is the effect of fertilizer regime on soil microbes, which are key to nutrient cycling, plant health and soil structure. Meta-analyses of experimental studies indicate that mineral fertilizer increases soil microbial biomass over unfertilized controls, and that organic fertilizers increase microbial biomass and activity over mineral fertilizers. However, the effect of fertilizers on soil microbial diversity remains poorly understood. Since biological diversity is an important determinant of ecosystem function and a fundamental metric in community ecology, the effects of fertilizer regimes on soil microbial diversity are of theoretical and applied interest. Here, we conduct a meta-analysis of 31 studies reporting microbial diversity metrics in mineral fertilized (NPK), organically fertilized (ORG) and unfertilized control (CON) soils. Of these studies, 26 reported taxonomic diversity derived from sequencing, gradient gel electrophoresis, RFLP, or dilution plate assay. Functional diversity, derived from Biolog Ecoplate™ measures of carbon substrate metabolism, was reported in 8 studies, with 3 studies reporting both diversity metrics. We found that functional diversity was on average 2.6 % greater in NPK compared with CON, 6.8 % greater in ORG vs CON and 3.6 % greater in ORG vs NPK. Prokaryote taxonomic diversity was not significantly different between NPK and CON, 4.2 % greater in ORG vs CON and 4.6 % greater in ORG vs. NPK. Fungal taxonomic diversity was not significantly different between NPK or ORG vs CON, but 5.4 % lower between ORG and NPK. There was very high residual heterogeneity in all meta-analyses of soil diversity, suggesting that a large amount of further research with detailed analysis of soil properties is required to fully understand the influence of fertilizer regimes on microbial diversity and ecosystem function.


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