The microbial communities within the loose, friable aggregations of organic and mineral components in soil are highly organized spatially, shaped in part by the structure of the soil itself.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Kansas State University found that soil drying significantly affected the structure and function of soil microbial communities.
Soil microbial communities are made of networks of interacting species that dynamically reorganize in a changing environment. Understanding how such microbiomes are organized in nature is important for designing or controlling them in the f
Soil microbiomes are among the most diverse microbial communities on Earth. They also play an immense role in cycling soil carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients that underpin the terrestrial food web.