Can inclusion of soil microbial data improve the assessment of soil health?
Abstract
The commonly used definition of soil health includes "the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem". This raises the question: If soil health is centered on the living soil ecosystem, why aren't there direct measures of the biological component of soil? Current methods to assessment soil health do not contain direct measures of the abundance, diversity, or composition of the microbial community, which is the major living part of the soil ecosystem. This presentation will summarize efforts to determine if direct measurements of soil microbial communities are related to soil health and if their inclusion enhances traditional assessments that focus on soil physical and chemical properties.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.B43A..02M
- Keywords:
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- 0402 Agricultural systems;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0465 Microbiology: ecology;
- physiology and genomics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0470 Nutrients and nutrient cycling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0486 Soils/pedology;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES