Time and space dynamics of the microbiome in sugarcane soils

Abstract

Brazil is the world's largest producer of sugarcane and its main derivatives ethanol and sugar. Cultivation fields are constantly expanding, occupying areas with distinct variations in temperature, rainfall regimes, cropping systems, straw managements and crop rotation, possibly shaping the microbial community in soils. Aiming to better understand such effect, the biogeography of microbial communities must be developed, depicting the spatial and temporal occurrence of microbial groups in soils. This proposal is complementary to the ongoing project, where dynamicity of the structure and abundance of bacteria and fungi communities is targeted two major States where sugarcane is produced in Brazil (São Paulo and Goiás). The specific objective of this proposal is to determine the appropriate biogeographic statistical methods to infer on ecological theory of biogeography that occurs in microbial communities in agricultural soils. The results already generated in the ongoing project, encompassing environmental, climatic and microbiological data, will be subjected to several statistical approaches and workflows for data transformations, in order to sustain inferences on the biogeography of microbial groups in the targeted soils. Then, the statistical results will be evaluated on a perspective to understand the role of microbial communities as a function of phylogenetic variation found in the places and over time. Therefore the exploration of statistical methods focusing on a biogeographic study will conclude on the influence of climate factors, crop rotation, tillage systems and straw management on the community of bacteria and fungi in soils cultivated with sugarcane. In the end, this project will generate a solid basis for the future development of agricultural practices based on the functionality of the soil microbiome in sugarcane fields. (AU)