Insights into the resistance and resilience of the soil microbial community

Soil is increasingly under environmental pressures that alter its capacity to fulfil essential ecosystem services. To maintain these crucial soil functions, it is important to know how soil microorganisms respond to disturbance or environmental change. Here, we summarize the recent progress in understanding the resistance and resilience (stability) of soil microbial communities and discuss the underlying mechanisms of soil biological stability together with the factors affecting it. Biological stability is not solely owing to the structure or diversity of the microbial community but is linked to a range of other vegetation and soil properties including aggregation and substrate quality. We suggest that…

• EC
  European Commission

  Awards: FP7-264465, 264465
• SF
  Science Foundation Ireland
• T
  Teagasc
• IN
  Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique