Towards climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soils
Soil fauna and microbial communities drive key ecosystem functions, such as nutrient supply to primary production and SOC accumulation. However, the role of plant diversity in shaping soil biota composition and activity via rhizodeposition and N-P uptake, microbial symbioses, and trophic cascades remain poorly understood.
https://ejpsoil.eu/soil-research/agroecoseqc
Objectives
In EU experimental sites network, the project aim at studying how agroecological intensification of cropping systems (e.g. introduction of plant services) can allow better regulation of degradation/resynthesis of soil organic matter and nutrient cycling by the plant-soil system. Advantages and disadvantages of such agroecological systems will be compared to less conservative ones for plant-soil fauna microbial functional diversity, biomass production, N leaching, soil C-stable pools, GHG emission and C sequestration
Outputs
- A quantification of the impact of agricultural practices on ecosystem services, including biomass production, SOC storage, greenhouse gas emission and nutrient retention;
- A better understanding of the role played by plant diversity and specific traits on soil fauna and microbial community diversity and functioning, as relevant drivers for SOC storage in soil; particular interest will be put on the fungal mycelial network development in soil and its function at increasing soil aggregates stability;
- A better understanding of the level of synchrony between plant nutrient demand, nutrient supply from soil biota and decomposition/resynthesis of soil organic matter along the gradient of tested agroecological management practices;
- An identification of the most sensitive and robust indicators able to describe the agroecosystem, and how the considered agroecological practice can shape plant community, soil meso- and microfauna, soil microbial community and functioning in favour of C persistence in soil;
- An integration of microbial functional diversity and rhizosphere plant-soil interactions (soil fauna, rhizosphere priming, plant control of SOM dynamics, symbiotic associations) into a model of ecosystem C and N cycling (SYMPHONY);
- An integration of these variables in other models considered by other current EJPSoil projects (SOMMIT, CarboSeq, others), also comparing different models’ performances on the dataset produced by the project.
Date
2021-2024
Financement
EJP Soil - External Call 
Partenaires
Council for Agricultural Research and Economics(CREA), Italy
Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE) Clermont Ferrand, France
Aarhus University, Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture (AU-AGRO), Denmark
TAGEM, Turkey
Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry (LAMMC), Lithuania
Stichting Wageningen Research (WR), Netherland
Walloon Agricultural Research Centre (CRAW), Belgium
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
BOKU University, Austria
Contact
Trinchera Alessandra, CREA ;
At Eco&Sols : Bertrand Isabelle, INRAE ;