Agricultural intensification reduces microbial network complexity and the abundance of keystone taxa in roots.

Authors: Banerjee, Samiran and Walder, Florian and Büchi, Lucie and Meyer, Marcel and Held, Alain Y and Gattinger, Andreas and Keller, Thomas and Charles, Raphael and van der Heijden, Marcel G A

Root-associated microbes play a key role in plant performance and productivity, making them important players in agroecosystems. So far, very few studies have assessed the impact of different farming systems on the root microbiota and it is still unclear whether agricultural intensification influences the structure and complexity of microbial communities. We investigated the impact of conventional, no-till, and organic farming on wheat root fungal communities using PacBio SMRT sequencing on samples collected from 60 farmlands in Switzerland. Organic farming harbored a much more complex fungal network with significantly higher connectivity than conventional and no-till farming systems. The abundance of keystone taxa was the highest under organic farming where agricultural intensification was the lowest. We also found a strong negative association (R2?=?0.366; P?

Journal: The ISME journal
DOI: 10.1038/s41396-019-0383-2
Year: 2019

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