Spatial structuring of soil microbial communities in commercial apple orchards.

ABSTRACT: Characterising spatial microbial community structure is important to understand and explain the consequences of continuous plantation of one crop species on the performance of subsequent crops, especially where this leads to reduced growth vigour and crop yield. We investigated the spatial structure, specifically distance-decay of similarity, of soil bacterial and fungal communities in two long-established orchards with contrasting agronomic characteristics. A spatially explicit sampling strategy was used to collect soil from under recently grubbed rows of apple trees and under the grassed aisles. Amplicon-based metabarcoding technology was used to characterise the soil microbial communities. The results suggested that (1) most of the differences in soil microbial community structure were

SUBMITTER: Deakin G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6102658 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature