![]() ![]() Recent studies on deforested lands have shown that land use has long-term effects on soil microbiota structure and diversity. Understanding how agricultural practices impact the soil microbiota is an important subject towards a more sustainable agriculture. Large-scale studies have shown that a large fraction of fungal taxa found in soils is not represented in sequence databases, that the diversity of soil fungal communities is influenced by a variety of climatic and edaphic factors, and that soil fungal communities exhibit evident patterns of geographical clustering. Besides bacteria, fungi are the other major component of the soil microbiota, playing crucial roles both as saprotrophs, plant mutualists, and pathogens and competing with bacteria for access to nutrients through the production of antimicrobial compounds. Bacterial communities are characterized by pronounced heterogeneity at small spatial scales, and by a more homogeneous structure over large spatial scales, showing biogeographical patterns that are significantly weaker than what is found for plants. ![]() Large-scale surveys have shown that the diversity encompassed by soil microbial communities exceeds what is found in host-associated communities, probably as a consequence of the enormous range of environmental conditions that can be experienced by microorganisms in surface soils. īacteria, archaea, and fungi are the dominant components of soil microbiota, generally accounting for more than 99% of the microbial biomass in soil samples. Soil serves as a primary reservoir for plant-colonizing bacteria, that play a major role in determining plant productivity and preventing invasion by bacterial pathogens. The biodiversity of soil microbial communities is increasingly recognized as a major factor for human health both directly, by limiting the spread of potential pathogens, and indirectly, by contributing to processes that provide clean air, water, and healthy food. The microorganisms that colonize soil are amongst the most abundant and diverse life forms on Earth, contributing to all geochemical processes on a global scale, and constituting a rich source of yet uncharacterized natural products of potential interest for pharmaceutical or biotechnological applications. Our results highlight the different responses of bacterial and fungal communities to environmental factors and highlight the need to characterize both components of the soil microbiota to fully understand the factors that drive their variability. We identified several taxa that were impacted by the chemical properties and texture of the soil. ![]() The diversity of bacterial and fungal communities was generally inversely correlated across locations. Cultivation altered the structure and composition of the soil microbiota both for bacteria and fungi, with site-specific effects on their diversity. The core fungal microbiota was much smaller and dominated by geography alone. Resultsīacterial communities had a core of conserved taxa accounting for more than 60% of the reads of each sample, that was influenced both by geography and cultivation. Using 16S rRNA gene and ITS sequencing, we characterized the soil microbiota of vineyards and of neighboring permanent grassland soils in the Italian province of Trentino, and correlated their structure and composition to location, chemical properties of the soil, and land management. ![]() Despite their importance as a reservoir of biodiversity, the factors shaping soil microbial communities and the extent by which these are impacted by cultivation are still poorly understood. ![]()
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