Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Soil Microbial Community Responses to Different Management Strategies in Almond Crop

Version 1 : Received: 26 December 2022 / Approved: 29 December 2022 / Online: 29 December 2022 (15:04:13 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Camacho-Sanchez, M.; Herencia, J.F.; Arroyo, F.T.; Capote, N. Soil Microbial Community Responses to Different Management Strategies in Almond Crop. J. Fungi 2023, 9, 95. Camacho-Sanchez, M.; Herencia, J.F.; Arroyo, F.T.; Capote, N. Soil Microbial Community Responses to Different Management Strategies in Almond Crop. J. Fungi 2023, 9, 95.

Abstract

A comparative study of organic and conventional farming systems was conducted in almond orchards to determine the effect of management practices on their fungal and bacterial communities. Soils from two orchards under organic (OM) and conventional (CM), and nearby nonmanaged soil (NM) were analyzed and compared. Several biochemical and biological parameters were measured (soil pH, electrical conductivity, total nitrogen, organic material, total phosphorous, total DNA, and fungal and bacterial DNA copies). Massive parallel sequencing of regions from fungal ITS rRNA and bacterial 16S genes was done to characterize their diversity in the soil. We report a larger abundance of bacteria and fungi in soils under OM, with a more balanced fungi:bacteria ratio, compared to bacteria-skewed proportions under CM and NM. The fungal phylum Ascomycota corresponded to around the 75% relative abundance in the soil, whereas for bacteria, the phyla Proteobacteria, Acidobacteriota and Bacteroidota integrated around 50% of their diversity. Alpha diversity was similar across practices, but beta diversity was highly clustered by soil management. Linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSE) identified bacterial and fungal taxa associated to each type of soil management. Analyses of fungal functional guilds revealed 3-4 times larger abundance of pathogenic fungi under CM compared to OM and NM treatments. Among them, the genus Cylindrocarpon was more abundant under CM and Fusarium under OM.

Keywords

Prunus dulcis; almond agroecosystem; sustainable management; metabarcoding; phytopathogenic fungi; organic farming.

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Agricultural Science and Agronomy

Comments (0)

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
Views 0
Downloads 0
Comments 0
Metrics 0


×
Alerts
Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.
We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.