Assessing microbiome functional traits as indicators of soil health for sustainable agriculture

土壤是我们粮食安全所依赖的多功能环境。土壤维持有助于生态系统服务（如粮食、纤维和能源生产）的特定功能的能力因土壤退化而受到损害。这种退化主要与过去70年来为保持粮食、纤维或能源作物的最佳生产力而制定的不可持续的农业管理做法有关。不同的土地管理做法导致土壤养分有效性和/或pH值水平的变化，随着时间的推移，这会在邻近的土壤系统中产生不同的微生物群和功能特性。并非所有这些社区或功能性物业都是理想的，而理想的情况将取决于土地的用途。了解在特定土地利用背景下健康和运作良好的土壤群落是什么样子，不仅对涉及土地生产的部门非常重要，而且对推动实现净零碳排放的决策者和希望恢复退化土地的人也非常重要。该项目的主要目的是利用作物根际微生物组数据集来解决土壤管理过程对养分循环的影响。一个基于性状的框架将被用来为微生物群落分配生活史策略，这些微生物群落可以作为土壤健康的指标。这项工作将以现有的根际微生物群为基础，这些微生物群来自几种主要的英国作物，这些作物在SRUC的Craibstone校区几十年来在不同管理下的土壤上轮作。档案和当代土壤样品都可用于实验室和/或基于温室的测试，以确定实际功能输出和遗传功能能力。需要解决的具体问题是：几十年的对比农业管理是否基于根际微生物组数据集建立了具有不同营养循环特性的微生物组？在长期对比管理下，土壤在营养矿化方面是否具有不同的功能能力，这些是否与微生物组数据集中发现的特征相关？是否存在可识别的微生物组标记，可以识别在低养分投入情况下能够成功生产作物的土壤？

Soil is a multifunctional environment upon which our food security depends. The ability of soils to maintain particular functions which contribute to ecosystem services (such as food, fibre and energy production) is compromised by soil degradation. This degradation is primarily associated with unsustainable agricultural management practices developed over the past 70 years to maintain optimum productivity of food, fibre, or energy crops. Contrasting land management practices result in variation in soil nutrient availability and / or pH levels, over time this generates distinct microbiomes and functional properties in adjacent soil systems. Not all of these communities or functional properties will be desirable and what is desirable will be dependent on what the land is being used for. Understanding what a healthy and well-functioning soil community looks like in the context of specific land use is of great importance not only to sectors involved in land-based production but also to policy makers driving towards net zero carbon emissions and those wishing to restore degraded land. The main aim of the project is to use crop rhizosphere microbiome datasets to address the impact of soil management processes on nutrient cycling. A trait-based framework will be used to assign life history strategies to microbiomes which can be used as indicators of soil health. The work will be based on existing rhizosphere microbiomes derived from several major UK crops which have been grown in rotation on soils exposed to contrasting management over several decades at SRUC's Craibstone Campus. Both archive and contemporary soil samples can be used for laboratory and/or glasshouse-based testing to determine actual functional output alongside genetic functional capacity. The specific questions to be addressed are:Have decades of contrasting agricultural management established microbiomes with differing nutrient cycling traits based on rhizosphere microbiome datasets?Do soils have different functional abilities in terms of nutrient mineralisation having been under long-term contrasting management and are these correlated to traits found in the microbiome datasets?Are there identifiable microbiome markers which can identify soils which will be successful in producing crops in low nutrient input scenarios?