Summary
This long-term land management experiment investigated whether diversity–stability relationships in soil microbial communities mirror those in plant communities. The authors found that soil tilling destabilised both fungal and bacterial abundance through distinct mechanisms: fungal communities were destabilised by reduced richness and increased individual taxon variability, whilst bacterial communities were destabilised by reduced variability in individual taxa. The findings suggest that land management practices disrupt soil microbial temporal dynamics below-ground in ways that differ between fungal and bacterial guilds, likely linked to changes in soil structure and edaphic properties.
UK applicability
These findings are relevant to UK arable and mixed farming systems where tilling remains a common practice. The results suggest that conventional soil disturbance may compromise the temporal stability and ecosystem functions of soil microbial communities, potentially informing adoption of reduced-tillage or conservation agriculture approaches in UK farming contexts.
Key measures
Fungal and bacterial community richness, abundance, temporal stability, synchrony of taxa fluctuations, and temporal variation in individual taxa
Outcomes reported
The study measured how soil tilling affects the diversity, synchrony, and temporal stability of fungal and bacterial communities in soil. It assessed changes in community richness, abundance, and the temporal variation of individual taxa in response to soil perturbation.
Topic tags
Dig deeper with Pulse AI.
Pulse AI has read the whole catalogue. Ask about this record, its theme, or how the findings apply to UK farming and policy — every answer cites the underlying studies.