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Recovery of soil microbial community structure and activity following partial sterilization

Ummehani Hassi (UGent) and Stefaan De Neve (UGent)
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Abstract
Soil microbial communities (bacteria, fungi, archaea, protozoa) directly and indirectly influence all other trophic interactions in soil. Complete soil sterilization combined with reinoculation of specific organisms is widely used in soil ecology to study the function of these organisms in e.g. the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen. Partial sterilization by means of gamma irradiation is emerging as a promising defaunating technique to selectively remove specific groups of organisms from soil whilst trying to minimize microbial disturbance. Ideally, the microbial community should return back to its original state shortly after partial sterilization, but to date there are no studies on the dynamics of microbial recovery following partial sterilization. Such knowledge would allow researchers to start experiments with reinoculated soil fauna at the moment that soil microbial community has fully re-established. We have conducted a mesocosm experiment in order to evaluate the recovery rate of microbial community following partial sterilisation and to assess the impact of potential factors (e.g. soil texture, presence or absence of protist and nematode community) accelerating the restoration process. Our hypotheses were: H1: microbial community would be modified by soil texture and microbial community would be dominated based on resource competition; H2: the re-establishment of the microbial community in the partially-sterilized soil is stimulated by reinoculation of a nematode community directly (by selective grazing on microbes) and/or indirectly (transporting microbes from high to low concentrated areas), and by the reinoculation of protists + microflora using soil powder (Postma-Blaauw et al., 2005).

Citation

Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:

MLA
Hassi, Ummehani, and Stefaan De Neve. “Recovery of Soil Microbial Community Structure and Activity Following Partial Sterilization.” XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Abstracts, 2021.
APA
Hassi, U., & De Neve, S. (2021). Recovery of soil microbial community structure and activity following partial sterilization. XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Abstracts. Presented at the XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Bozen/Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy.
Chicago author-date
Hassi, Ummehani, and Stefaan De Neve. 2021. “Recovery of Soil Microbial Community Structure and Activity Following Partial Sterilization.” In XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Abstracts.
Chicago author-date (all authors)
Hassi, Ummehani, and Stefaan De Neve. 2021. “Recovery of Soil Microbial Community Structure and Activity Following Partial Sterilization.” In XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Abstracts.
Vancouver
1.
Hassi U, De Neve S. Recovery of soil microbial community structure and activity following partial sterilization. In: XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Abstracts. 2021.
IEEE
[1]
U. Hassi and S. De Neve, “Recovery of soil microbial community structure and activity following partial sterilization,” in XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Abstracts, Bozen/Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy, 2021.
@inproceedings{01GT6E8ZS4SJWPNBS04JYTMVW0,
  abstract     = {{Soil microbial communities (bacteria, fungi, archaea, protozoa) directly and indirectly influence all other trophic interactions in soil. Complete soil sterilization combined with reinoculation of specific organisms is widely used in soil ecology to study the function of these organisms in e.g. the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen. Partial sterilization by means of gamma irradiation is emerging as a promising defaunating technique to selectively remove specific groups of organisms from soil whilst trying to minimize microbial disturbance. Ideally, the microbial community should return back to its original state shortly after partial sterilization, but to date there are no studies on the dynamics of microbial recovery following partial sterilization. Such knowledge would allow researchers to start experiments with reinoculated soil fauna at the moment that soil microbial community has fully re-established.  
We have conducted a mesocosm experiment in order to evaluate the recovery rate of microbial community following partial sterilisation and to assess the impact of potential factors (e.g. soil texture, presence or absence of protist and nematode community) accelerating the restoration process. Our hypotheses were: H1:  microbial community would be modified by soil texture and microbial community would be dominated based on resource competition; H2: the re-establishment of the microbial community in the partially-sterilized soil is stimulated by reinoculation of a nematode community directly (by selective grazing on microbes) and/or indirectly (transporting microbes from high to low concentrated areas), and by the reinoculation of protists + microflora using soil powder (Postma-Blaauw et al., 2005).}},
  author       = {{Hassi, Ummehani and De Neve, Stefaan}},
  booktitle    = {{XVIII International Colloquium on Soil Zoology (ICSZ2021), Abstracts}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Bozen/Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy}},
  title        = {{Recovery of soil microbial community structure and activity following partial sterilization}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}