Project Prodigy: Microbial spillover from forest to pasture
We investigated into pattern shifts of microbial diversity and its functions along 300 m long transition gradients in Southwestern Amazonia spanning from primary tropical rainforest to freshly established Brachiaria (syn. Urocholoa) monocrop pastures (less than 15 years since conversion) to clarify the range of potential spillover effects into the adjacent ecosystems. The microbial diversity was assessed with Illumina metabarcoding of the 16S rRNA and the ITS genes and microbial functions were predicted using the Faprotax and FUNGuild databases.