Microbes in the Anthropocene: spillover of agriculturally selected bacteria and their impact on natural ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Soil microbial communities are enormously diverse, with at least millions of species and trillions of genes unknown to science or poorly described. Soil microbial communities are key components of agriculture, for example, in provisioning nitrogen and protecting crops from pathogens, providing overall ecosystem services in excess of $1000bn per year. It is important to know how humans are affecting this hidden diversity. Much is known about the negative consequences of agricultural intensification on higher organisms, but almost nothing is known about how alterations to landscapes affect microbial diversity, distributions and processes. We review what is known about spatial flows of microbes and their response to land-use change, and outline nine hypotheses to advance research of microbiom

SUBMITTER: Bell T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5204138 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature