TY - JOUR T1 - Crop diversity enhances disease suppressive potential in soils JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/030528 SP - 030528 AU - Ariane L. Peralta AU - Yanmei Sun AU - Jay T. Lennon Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/11/07/030528.abstract N2 - Agricultural management can have lasting impacts on microbial community structure and function through changes in biotic (i.e., plant inputs) and abiotic (i.e., soil fertility) soil properties. Enhancing biodiversity is expected to increase ecosystem functions, and in an agricultural context, such functions include enhanced plant production and pest suppression. For example, disease suppressive soils are characterized by the biocontrol properties provided by resident soil microorganisms capable of producing antifungal or antibacterial compounds known to suppress the growth of soil-borne pathogens. In this study, we investigated the impact of long-term crop diversity on microbial communities and disease suppressive functional potential in soils. In 2012, we collected soil samples from the Biodiversity Gradient Experiment (established in 2000) at the Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research (KBS-LTER) site. We sampled 7 treatments along the crop diversity gradient (monoculture to 5 crop species) and a spring fallow treatment to examine the influence of crop diversity on total bacterial community composition (16S rRNA amplicon sequencing) and a subset of microorganisms capable of producing antifungal compounds (2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol: phlD gene fingerprint analysis; pyrrolnitrin: prnD gene quantitative PCR). Our study revealed that crop diversity significantly influenced bacterial community composition and abundance of disease suppressive functional groups. Variation in plant inputs to soil organic matter pools may be a possible mechanism driving shifts in microbial community patterns and disease suppressive functional potential. ER -