Award details

Soil microbe diversity and activity

Reference	BBS/E/C/00004175
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Penny Hirsch
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Rothamsted Research
Department	Rothamsted Research Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	1,113,506
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/1999
End date	31/03/2008
Duration	108 months

Abstract

Microorganisms play an essential role in maintaining soil fertility: cycling nutrients, influencing their availability; improving soil structure; supporting healthy plant growth; degrading organic pollutants. Any one group of microbes is unlikely to perform with maximum efficiency under all circumstances so genetically diverse populations are needed to provide continuation of important soil processes. Since the relationship between the size, diversity and activity of microbial populations and soil 'quality' is unclear, also how these properties fluctuate throughout the seasons, with crop rotations, and the scale (temporal, spatial) on which they vary, it is difficult to predict effects of changes in agricultural practice, land use, climate, introduction of novel plants, microbial inoculants and pollution on soil quality. Baseline studies are needed to demonstrate the significance of any observed changes in response to unusual stress. Some functions undertaken by specific groups of bacteria can be measured in situ and may indicate the size of the active population, but cannot describe its diversity or indicate if there is a related, inactive population. More detailed examination of individual groups of bacteria is possible, whether or not they can be isolated from the soil and be grown in laboratory culture. As the genetic material defines organism identity, profiles based on DNA are the most reliable method of identification, including difficult-to-culture microbes with sufficient DNA sequence information to design specific primers. PCR is used to amplify sequences from individual or related strains in DNA isolated from soil providing estimates of diversity and relative abundance. Quantitative PCR can estimate the frequency of sequences and RT-PCR can amplify ribosomal sequences identifying which cells are active with elevated ribosome numbers. However, to assess and compare whole populations, DNA arrays offer great future possibilities.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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