The soil microbiome and its dynamics in the face of changes in tillage practices

FRENE JUAN P; WALL LUIS; GABARINI LUCIANO; ERIJMAN L; EVA FIGUEROLA; SMALLA K

Iquique

Congreso; XLI Annual Meeting of the Chilean Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Society; 2018

Chilean Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Society

The soil microbiome and its dynamics in the face of changes in tillage practices El microbioma del suelo y su dinámica frente al cambio en las prácticas de labranzaEva Figuerola, Juan P. Frene, Luciano Gabarini, K. Smalla, Luis Wall, L. ErijmanA greater knowledge of the diversity of microorganisms that inhabit the soil is essential for the rational management of edaphic resources and the preservation of ecosystem services. High-throughput sequencing has allowed studying the soil microbiome in an unprecedented depth. As an example of its practical implementation, we have analyzed the effect of tillage on soil microorganisms in a 30 years old system under agricultural production comparing conventional tillage (CT) with no-tillage (NT) under the same sequence of crop rotation and agrochemical application. Each parcel of land was divided into two sections where the tillage practice was switched to create two new treatments: new conventional tillage (nCT) and new zero tillage (nNT). Six months after the switch, the change of management was not reflected in the microbial community structure, however, 18 months later, nCT showed modifications in upper (5-10 cm) soil microbial community resembling those which have been under historical tillage. After 30 months from the tillage change, soils which have been under tillage or are under tillage at the moment (CT, nCT and nNT) clustered together apart from soils under NT. According to these results, recovering of soil microbial community structure has not yet been attained for soils where disturb (tillage) was interrupted. On the contrary, disruptions caused by plough on soil microbiome were detected by 18 months of tillage application.