title: Spatial and temporal variation of archaeal, bacterial and fungal communities in agricultural soils.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Soil microbial communities are in constant change at many different temporal and spatial scales. However, the importance of these changes to the turnover of the soil microbial communities has been rarely studied simultaneously in space and time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, we explored the temporal and spatial responses of soil bacterial, archaeal and fungal β-diversities to abiotic parameters. Taking into account data from a 3-year sampling period, we analyzed the abundances and community structures of Archaea, Bacteria and Fungi along with key soil chemical parameters. We questioned how these abiotic variables influence the turnover of bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities and how they impact the long-term patterns of changes of the aforementioned soil communities. Interestingly, we found that the bacterial and fungal β-diversities are quite stable over time, whereas archaeal diversity showed significantly higher fluctuations. These fluctuations were reflected in temporal turnover caused by soil management through addition of N-fertilizers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study showed that management practices applied to agricultural soils might not significantly affect the bacterial and fungal communities, but cause slow and long-term changes in the abundance and structure of the archaeal community. Moreover, the results suggest that, to different extents, abiotic and biotic factors determine the community assembly of archaeal, bacterial and fungal communities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbial Ecology, Centre for Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. m.silva@rug.nl
authors.forename: Michele C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Pereira e Silva
authors.forename: Armando Cavalcante Franco
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Dias
authors.forename: Jan Dirk
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: van Elsas
authors.forename: Joana Falcão
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Salles
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D001105:Archaea / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D044822:Biodiversity; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D004275:DNA, Ribosomal