Legacy of Repeated Cultivation Drives Cyclical Microbial Community Development in a Tropical Oxisol Soil.

Agricultural practices and the crop being actively cultivated are some of the most important contributors to soil microbial community assembly processes in agroecosystems. However, it is not well-understood how the cultivation of diverse crop species can directionally shift complex soil microbial communities, especially under continuous monoculture systems. Here, we conducted a field experiment to assess how three crop species (Lactuca sativa, Brassica juncea, and Zea mays) may shift soil microbial (bacteria/archaea and fungi) communities when planted in a monoculture and repeatedly grown for three cycles in a tropical Oxisol soil. We found that while plant species made limited contributions to microbial community differentiation, repeated cultivation was a strong driver of community development over time. The bacterial/archaeal communities exhibited a cyclical community development pattern, initially with strong differentiation that attenuated to a steady state at the end of the three cycles. In contrast, fungal communities generally developed more linearly and may have only started to stabilize after three cropping cycles. These developments may speak to the stronger legacy effects on fungal communities. Together, these results highlight the differences between how bacteria/archaea and fungal communities develop, especially in tropical, underdeveloped, intensively degraded, or marginal soils.