Soil Microbial Community Dynamics in Land Use Change

Soil microbial communities underpin terrestrial ecosystem functions by driving nutrient cycles, regulating soil structure and mediating carbon storage. Land use change—from natural forests to plantations, grasslands or croplands—alters the physical and chemical environment of soils, triggering shifts in bacterial, fungal and micro‐ and mesofaunal assemblages. These shifts follow predictable trajectories as communities transition from reflecting historical land cover to adopting functional traits suited to the new management regime. Key drivers include changes in soil pH, nutrient availability, organic matter inputs and hydrological regimes. Legacy effects of past land use can persist for decades, delaying restoration of microbial-driven processes such as nitrification, mineralisation and complex carbon turnover. Understanding these dynamics is critical for predicting soil health outcomes, designing sustainable land management practices and enhancing resilience of agroecosystems and natural landscapes in the face of global change.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Comprehensive synthesis of tropical rainforest conversion to rubber and oil palm plantations has shown substantial losses in belowground carbon pools, with soil organic matter continuing to decline a decade after deforestation. This work highlights the disproportionate impact of intensive monocultures on long‐term ecosystem carbon balance. Investigations into soil fungal communities across tropical land‐use intensities reveal that conversion from rainforest to plantations restructures fungal networks, decreasing symbiotrophic taxa and promoting saprotrophic and pathogenic groups, thereby altering soil health and disease risk. Studies of soil micro‐ and mesofauna in tropical settings demonstrate a marked reduction in faunal diversity and functional group composition following forest replacement, underscoring additional biodiversity losses beyond microbial shifts and emphasising the importance of belowground fauna in ecosystem assessments.

Soil Microbial Community Dynamics in Land Use Change publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in soil microbial community dynamics in land use change across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Rhizosphere: The narrow zone of soil influenced by root exudates and associated microbial activity.

Metagenomics: The study of collective genomes from environmental samples to assess community composition and potential functions.

Ectomycorrhizal fungi: Symbiotic fungi that colonise plant roots and facilitate nutrient exchange, especially phosphorus and nitrogen.

Saprotrophic fungi: Decomposers that break down dead organic matter, releasing nutrients back into the soil.

β-diversity: A measure of variation in species composition between different habitats or land-use types.

References

1. Plant roots are more strongly linked to microorganisms in leaf litter rather than in soil across tropical land-use systems. Soil Biology and Biochemistry (2024).
2. Land use modification causes slow, but predictable, change in soil microbial community composition and functional potential. Environmental Microbiome (2023).
3. Linking fungal community structure with soil nitrogen dynamics following forest conversion in a subalpine forest in China. Geoderma (2023).
4. Carbon costs and benefits of Indonesian rainforest conversion to plantations. Nature Communications (2018).
5. Intensive tropical land use massively shifts soil fungal communities. Scientific Reports (2019).
6. Tropical forest conversion to rubber plantation affects soil micro- & mesofaunal community & diversity. Scientific Reports (2019).