Small Farm Holder Cropping Systems Drive Soil Properties and Microbial Profiles in an Equatorial Rainforest Agroecosystem

Metabarcoding of prokaryotic and fungal ribosomal DNA was used to describe the microbial communities in soils of remnant equatorial rainforest, maize-bean intercrop, and sugarcane in western Kenya. Cropping systems influenced the microbial community composition and func-tional traits (energy source and nutrient cycling) of bulk soil in each crop. Microbial richness and diversity tended to increase with cultivation intensity. Soil of maize-bean intercrop had lower percentages and sugarcane had higher percentages of unique amplicon sequence variants of both bacteria and fungi compared to the remnant forest. Functional traits were altered by cultivation intensity. Compared to remnant forest soils, maize-bean intercrop soil had lower percentages of aerobic chemoheterotrophic bacteria and higher percentages of N-cycling bacteria, while sugar-cane had higher percentages of aerobic chemoheterotrophic bacteria and lower percentages of N-cycling bacteria. In the face of increasing forest loss and pressures for agricultural productivity, this landscape provides a rich site for studying the impacts of cropping systems on soil health. Other associated metada can be found at Figshare: 10.6084/m9.figshare.25152740

Identifier
Source https://data.blue-cloud.org/search-details?step=~01228AA7F98FD7B5CC940BCB23EB58D95539D7BDB61
Metadata Access https://data.blue-cloud.org/api/collections/28AA7F98FD7B5CC940BCB23EB58D95539D7BDB61
Provenance
Instrument Illumina MiSeq; ILLUMINA
Publisher Blue-Cloud Data Discovery & Access service; ELIXIR-ENA
Publication Year 2024
OpenAccess true
Contact blue-cloud-support(at)maris.nl
Representation
Discipline Marine Science
Spatial Coverage (-81.272W, 0.167S, 34.842E, 43.011N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2016-11-08T00:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2017-05-01T00:00:00Z