Grassland management influences spatial patterns of soil microbial communities

Sayer, Emma J.; Wagner, Markus; Oliver, Anna E.; Pywell, Richard F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6431-9959; James, Phillip; Whiteley, Andrew S.; Heard, Matthew S.. 2013 Grassland management influences spatial patterns of soil microbial communities. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 61. 61-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.02.012

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.02.012

Abstract/Summary

Soil micro-organisms play a vital role in grassland ecosystem functioning but little is known about the effects of grassland management on spatial patterns of soil microbial communities. We compared plant species composition with terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) fingerprints of soil bacterial and fungal communities in unimproved, restored and improved wet grasslands. We assessed community composition of soil micro-organisms at distances ranging from 0.01 m to 100 m and determined taxa–area relationships from field- to landscape level. We show that land management type influenced bacterial but not fungal community composition. However, extensive grassland management to restore aboveground diversity affected spatial patterns of soil fungi. We found distinct distance–decay and small-scale aggregation of fungal populations in extensively managed grasslands restored from former arable use. There were no clear spatial patterns in bacterial communities at the field-scale. However, at the landscape level there was a moderate increase in bacterial taxa and a strong increase in fungal taxa with the number of sites sampled. Our results suggest that grassland management affects soil microbial communities at multiple scales; the observed small-scale variation may facilitate plant species coexistence and should be taken into account in field studies of soil microbial communities.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.02.012
Programmes:	CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Biodiversity
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Acreman Pywell
ISSN:	0038-0717
Additional Keywords:	arable reversion, bacteria, biodiversity, community composition, distance-decay, fungi, spatial scaling, taxa-area relationships, T-RFLP analysis
NORA Subject Terms:	Ecology and Environment Agriculture and Soil Science Biology and Microbiology
Date made live:	19 Dec 2013 15:11 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/504347

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.02.012

Programmes:

CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Biodiversity

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

Acreman
Pywell

ISSN:

0038-0717

Additional Keywords:

arable reversion, bacteria, biodiversity, community composition, distance-decay, fungi, spatial scaling, taxa-area relationships, T-RFLP analysis