Rapid response of soil microbial communities from conventional, low input, and organic farming systems to a wet/dry cycle

Plant growth and soil microbial community structure of legumes and grasses grown in monoculture or mixture

“…Changes in soil moisture can influence soil microbial community structure via its effects on plant biomass and root exudation. To date only a few studies have been conducted to assess the impact of soil moisture content on soil microbial communities, as influenced by plant community composition (Lundquist et al, 1999;Söderberg et al, 2002;Fierer et al, 2003;Griffiths et al, 2003), although plant diversity is the rule in natural ecosystems rather than the exception of cultivated grasslands.…”

The Influence of Tropical Plant Diversity and Composition on Soil Microbial Communities

“…Using biomarkers such as phospholipids and DNA, a number of investigators have found that agriculture significantly affects microbial community composition in both the temperate zone [7,10,28] and the tropics [5,33,56]. Similarly, recent work suggests that microbial community composition can be affected by plant species or even different cultivars of the same species in agricultural systems [3,4,30].…”

Soil Microbial Community Response to Land Use Change in an Agricultural Landscape of Western Kenya

“…Some 1780 Mha of the world's soils are now known to be degraded in some way [39], with conversion of forests and grasslands to agriculture causing dramatic effects on physical and chemical properties [13,36,45]. Losses in soil carbon can be considerable, and indigenous microbial communities respond to such changes in carbon and other substrates [8,11,12,22,30,46]. In tropical agroecosystems, where climate and edaphic factors may place less constraint on microbial activity [9], farmers commonly have limited access to inputs, and turnover of organic matter is rapid.…”