Summary
This long-term field study, likely based on established grassland trial plots in the United Kingdom, demonstrates that century-long fertilisation history fundamentally alters the mechanisms structuring soil microbial communities. Rather than responding to random colonisation events, chronically fertilised soils show increased deterministic assembly driven by resource availability, rendering microbial succession more predictable and homogeneous. The findings suggest that sustained nutrient management practices can systematically reshape not only microbial composition but also the ecological processes underpinning community assembly over decadal to centennial timescales.
UK applicability
These findings are directly relevant to United Kingdom grassland management, particularly given the long-term trial infrastructure (such as the Rothamsted Research sites) that enabled this study. The results inform current policy and practice around fertiliser use intensification and its legacy effects on soil biological functioning in pastoral systems.
Key measures
Microbial community composition (likely 16S rRNA sequencing or similar); beta-diversity partitioning into stochastic and deterministic components; temporal succession dynamics; fertilisation treatments applied over ~100 years
Outcomes reported
The study measured shifts in grassland soil microbial community assembly processes over a century of contrasting fertilisation regimes. It quantified the relative contributions of stochastic versus deterministic (selection-driven) processes governing microbial succession under different nutrient input histories.
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