“…There is paucity of information on the characteristics of soil microbial communities in agroecosystems, particularly in the semi-arid regions of the world growing crops in drylands. Microbial communities have great potential for temporal or spatial change, and therefore understanding their community dynamics is important in both basic and applied ecological contexts (Derry et al, 1999;Diosma et al, 2006;Esperschutz et al, 2007;Nannipieri et al, 2008;Shishido et al, 2008;Wu et al, 2008;Nautiyal et al, 2010). A rapid, community level approach for assessing patterns of sole carbon source utilization by mixed microbial samples has been used to study microbial community dynamics (Diosma et al, 2006;Nautiyal et al, 2010).…”