Soil Virome Responses to Organic, Conventional, and Conservation Agriculture
This project investigates how major agricultural management systems influence the diversity and functional potential of soil DNA viruses. Viromes and metagenomes were generated from bulk and rhizosphere soils collected in a long-term Swiss field trial comparing four arable cropping systems: conventional intensive tillage, organic intensive tillage, conventional no-till, and organic reduced tillage. The latter two systems represent conservation agriculture and meet the key criteria of permanent soil cover, minimal soil disturbance, and a six-year crop rotation. By combining size-fractionated viromes with total soil metagenomes, we characterized viral diversity, viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUs), virus-host linkages, and auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) associated with carbon cycling. The dataset captures how agricultural management influences viral richness, community composition, and functional gene profiles, including AMGs related to organic matter degradation under conservation practices. These data provide a resource for understanding how farming systems shape soil viral ecology and contribute to microbial processes relevant to carbon turnover and soil health.