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。土壤退化损害了土壤维持有助于生态系统服务(如食物、纤维和能源生产)的特定功能的能力。这种退化主要与过去70年来为维持粮食、纤维或能源作物的最佳生产力而发展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水平的变化，随着时间的推移，这在相邻的土壤系统中产生了不同的微生物群和功能特性。并不是所有这些社区或功能物业都是可取的，什么是可取的将取决于土地的用途。了解一个健康和运作良好的土壤群落在具体土地利用情况下是什么样子，不仅对参与土地生产的部门，而且对推动实现碳净零排放的决策者和那些希望恢复退化土地的人都是非常重要的。该项目的主要目的是利用作物根际微生物群数据集处理土壤管理过程对养分循环的影响。将使用一个基于特征的框架为微生物群分配生活史战略，这些微生物群可用作土壤健康的指标。这项工作将基于现有的根际微生物群落，这些微生物群落来自几种主要的英国作物，这些作物在SRUC的Craibstone校园几十年来轮流种植在土壤上，受到不同的管理。档案和当代土壤样本都可用于实验室和/或温室测试，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根据根际微生物组数据建立了具有不同养分循环特征的微生物组？土壤在长期对比管理下的养分矿化方面是否具有不同的功能能力，以及这些能力是否与微生物组数据集中发现的特征相关？是否有可识别的微生物组标记可以识别在低养分输入情况下成功种植作物的土壤？

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?