Summary
This long-term field study demonstrates that soil tilling destabilises both fungal and bacterial communities but through distinct mechanisms: fungal destabilisation occurs via reduced richness and increased temporal variation in individual taxa, whilst bacterial destabilisation results from reduced temporal variation in taxa. The findings suggest that land management practices disrupt the temporal dynamics and population-level asynchrony that ordinarily stabilise soil microbial abundance, with differential effects across microbial guilds likely driven by soil structure alterations.
UK applicability
The findings are relevant to UK arable and mixed farming systems where tillage is widely practised. The study's demonstration that reduced microbial diversity and altered population synchrony undermine ecosystem stability may inform UK soil health policy and conservation agriculture initiatives, though the specific mechanisms may vary with UK soil types and climatic conditions.
Key measures
Fungal and bacterial community richness, abundance, temporal stability, temporal variation in individual taxa, synchrony of taxa fluctuations through time
Outcomes reported
The study measured temporal stability, richness, abundance and synchrony of soil fungal and bacterial communities under contrasting soil management practices (tilled vs. untilled). It assessed how soil perturbation by tilling affects the diversity–stability relationship and population dynamics in below-ground microbial guilds.
Topic tags
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