Connecting Soil Microbial Communities to Soil Functioning and Soil Health.

One of the most important functions soils perform, is the capacity to buffer anthropogenic disturbances to sustain productivity while improving water and air quality. At the core of a healthy soil is a biological active and diverse community that provides internal nutrient cycling and is resilient to disturbance. Although soil chemical and physical properties are necessary components of a soil health assessment, soil biological properties are considered to be early ecosensors that provide information about the dynamic soil properties as affected by management shifts or changes due to changing climatic variables. This presentation aims to provide examples of the sensitivity of these biological properties in response to alternative agronomic practices to enhance soil and water sustainability as well as response to extreme drought and high temperatures. Our studies are located in a semi-arid environment that is challenged by a depleting water source, extreme weather events, and inherently low fertile soils. This environment also enables us to test short- and long-term impacts of management practices to ameliorate these challenges. A compilation of data will be provided that shows how we have been able to link shifts in the soil microbial structure via biochemical (fatty acid profiling) and molecular (next-generation sequencing) with important soil functions (aggregate stability, biogeochemical cycles, building organic matter, and carbon sequestration, etc.).