Land use conversion increases network complexity and stability of soil microbial communities in a temperate grassland.

ABSTRACT: Soils harbor highly diverse microbial communities that are critical to soil health, but agriculture has caused extensive land use conversion resulting in negative effects on critical ecosystem processes. However, the responses and adaptations of microbial communities to land use conversion have not yet been understood. Here, we examined the effects of land conversion for long-term crop use on the network complexity and stability of soil microbial communities over 19 months. Despite reduced microbial biodiversity in comparison with native tallgrass prairie, conventionally tilled (CT) cropland significantly increased network complexity such as connectivity, connectance, average clustering coefficient, relative modularity, and the number of species acting at network hubs and connectors as wel

SUBMITTER: Cornell CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10689820 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature