BackgroundHarnessing beneficial microbes presents a promising strategy to optimize plant growth and agricultural sustainability. Little is known to which extent and how specifically soil and plant microbiomes can be manipulated through different cropping practices. Here, we investigated soil and wheat root microbial communities in a cropping system experiment consisting of conventional and organic managements, both with different tillage intensities.ResultsWhile microbial richness was marginally affected, we found pronounced cropping effects on community composition, which were specific for the respective microbiomes. Soil bacterial communities were primarily structured by tillage, whereas soil fungal communities responded mainly to management type with additional effects by tillage. In roots, management type was also the driving factor for bacteria but not for fungi, which were generally determined by changes in tillage intensity. To quantify an “effect size” for microbiota manipulation, we found that about 10% of variation in microbial communities was explained by the tested cropping practices. Cropping sensitive microbes were taxonomically diverse, and they responded in guilds of taxa to the specific practices. These microbes also included frequent community members or members co-occurring with many other microbes in the community, suggesting that cropping practices may allow manipulation of influential community members.ConclusionsUnderstanding the abundance patterns of cropping sensitive microbes presents the basis towards developing microbiota management strategies for smart farming. For future targeted microbiota management—e.g., to foster certain microbes with specific agricultural practices—a next step will be to identify the functional traits of the cropping sensitive microbes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40168-017-0389-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A major challenge for agriculture is to enhance productivity with minimum impact on the environment. Several studies indicate that cover crops could replace anthropogenic inputs and enhance crop productivity. However, so far, it is unclear if cover crop effects vary between different cropping systems, and direct comparisons among major arable production systems are rare. Here we compared the short-term effects of various cover crops on crop yield, nitrogen uptake, and weed infestation in four arable production systems (conventional cropping with intensive tillage and no-tillage; organic cropping with intensive tillage and reduced tillage). We hypothesized that cover cropping effects increase with decreasing management intensity. Our study demonstrated that cover crop effects on crop yield were highest in the organic system with reduced tillage (+24%), intermediate in the organic system with tillage (+13%) and in the conventional system with no tillage (+8%) and lowest in the conventional system with tillage (+2%). Our results indicate that cover crops are essential to maintaining a certain yield level when soil tillage intensity is reduced (e.g. under conservation agriculture), or when production is converted to organic agriculture. Thus, the inclusion of cover crops provides additional opportunities to increase the yield of lower intensity production systems and contribute to ecological intensification.

Reduced tillage is increasingly promoted to improve sustainability and productivity of agricultural systems. Nonetheless, adoption of reduced tillage by organic farmers has been slow due to concerns about nutrient supply, soil structure, and weeds that may limit yields. Here, we compiled the results from both published and unpublished research comparing deep or shallow inversion tillage, with various categories of reduced tillage under organic management. Shallow refers to less than 25 cm. We found that (1) division

In recent years there has been an upsurge of studies on ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF), or the ability of ecosystems to simultaneously provide multiple functions and/or services. The concept of EMF itself, the analytical approaches used to calculate it, and its implications depending on the spatial scale and field of study have been discussed in detail. However, to date there has been little dialogue concerning the basis of EMF studies: what should or should not be considered appropriate measures for ecosystem functions. To begin this discussion, we performed an in‐depth review of EMF studies across four major terrestrial ecosystems (agroecosystems, drylands, forests and grasslands) by analysing 82 studies, which together have assessed 775 ecosystem functions from a variety of field and greenhouse experiments across the globe. The number of ecosystem functions analysed varied from two to 82 per study and we found large differences in the distribution of functions across ecosystem types and ecosystem service categories. Furthermore, there was little explanation of why certain variables were included in the EMF calculation or how they relate to ecosystem functioning. Synthesis. Based on the literature analysis, it is clear that there is no general agreement regarding which measurements should or should not be considered functions in the field of ecology. To address this issue, we propose a general guideline for determining and measuring appropriate functions.