Abstract
Agricultural management alters physical and chemical soil properties, which directly affects microbial life strategies and community composition. The microbial community drives important nutrient cycling processes that can influence soil quality, cropping productivity and environmental sustainability. In this research, a long-term agricultural experiment in a subtropical Acrisol was studied in south Brazil. The plots at this site represent two tillage systems, two nitrogen fertilization regimes and three crop rotation systems. Using Illumina high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, the archaeal and bacterial composition was determined from phylum to species level in the different plot treatments. The relative abundance of these taxes was correlated with measured soil properties. The P, Mg, total organic carbon, total N and mineral N were significantly higher in the no-tillage system. The microbial diversity was higher in the no-tillage system at order, family, genus and species level. In addition, overall microbial composition changed significantly between conventional tillage and no-tillage systems. Anaerobic bacteria, such as clostridia, dominate in no-tilled soil as well as anaerobic methanogenic archaea, which were detected only in the no-tillage system. Microbial diversity was higher in plots in which only cereals (oat and maize) were grown. Soil management influenced soil biodiversity on Acrisol by change of composition and abundance of individual species.
Highlights
Agricultural management affects soil chemical, physical and biological features
This study demonstrates that the no-tillage system significantly increase the soil microbial diversity in an Acrisol
Verrucomicrobia, Firmicutes, Crenarchaeota, Chlamydiae, Euryarchaeota and Chlorobi representatives were predominant in a notillage system
Summary
Agricultural management affects soil chemical, physical and biological features. Tillage typically involves complete removal of vegetation followed by plantings often designed to completely switch the crop cover from the previous year and this process increases soil erosion and degradation, which triggers many changes in the soil community composition [1,2,3,4,5]. No-tillage is a sustainable cropping management system that protects soil, water, air, and biodiversity [5,9,10], and authors have shown that even a reduction in tillage leads to increased microbial activity and biomass in contrast to surface soil under conventional tillage [11,12]. Agricultural areas under no-tillage systems are increasing worldwide largely as result of improved soil conservation efforts. Feng [12] found that a no-till management system led to significantly higher soil organic carbon (SOC) and microbial biomass in the soil surface compared to the conventional tillage treatment. Wang [14] found significant increases in soil N, organic C and SOM fraction with no-tillage system, while conventional tillage had deleterious impact on soil microbial biomass and reduced SOC
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