Robert Zabawa

Distinct Soil Bacterial Communities Revealed under a Diversely Managed Agroecosystem

Land-use change and management practices are normally enacted to manipulate environments to improve conditions that relate to production, remediation, and accommodation. However, their effect on the soil microbial community and their subsequent influence on soil function is still difficult to quantify. Recent applications of molecular techniques to soil biology, especially the use of 16S rRNA, are helping to bridge this gap. In this study, the influence of three land-use systems within a demonstration farm were evaluated with a view to further understand how these practices may impact observed soil bacterial communities. Replicate soil samples collected from the three land-use systems (grazed pine forest, cultivated crop, and grazed pasture) on a single soil type. High throughput 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing was used to generate sequence datasets. The different land use systems showed distinction in the structure of their bacterial communities with respect to the differences detected in cluster analysis as well as diversity indices. Specific taxa, particularly Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and classes of Proteobacteria, showed significant shifts across the land-use strata. Families belonging to these taxa broke with notions of copio- and oligotrphy at the class level, as many of the less abundant groups of families of Actinobacteria showed a propensity for soil environments with reduced carbon/nutrient availability. Orders Actinomycetales and Solirubrobacterales showed their highest abundance in the heavily disturbed cultivated system despite the lowest soil organic carbon (SOC) values across the site. Selected soil properties ([SOC], total nitrogen [TN], soil texture, phosphodiesterase [PD], alkaline phosphatase [APA], acid phosphatase [ACP] activity, and pH) also differed significantly across land-use regimes, with SOM, PD, and pH showing variation consistent with shifts in community structure and composition. These results suggest that use of pyrosequencing along with traditional analysis of soil physiochemical properties may provide insight into the ecology of descending taxonomic groups in bacterial communities.

The Black farmer and land in south-central Alabama: Strategies to preserve a scarce resource

Black-American culture has been tied to the land and agriculture for over 300 years. However, Blacks have had limited access to land ownership due to a historic relationship with a dominant White society based on discrimination. This major resource constraint prevented the full participation of the Black farmer in traditional commercial agriculture. Research conducted in the Black Belt Region of Alabama is used to examine the importance of land, particularly the multigenerational ownership of land, on current farm participation and landholdings. Strategies employed by farmers to pass this scarce resource to succeeding generations are also examined.

Spatial Assessment of Selected Soil Properties within an Industrial Poultry Production Site

Waste resulting from industrial poultry production systems is becoming an increasingly significant environmental problem in the US, threatening both soil and water quality. The goal of this study was to assess the spatial variability and interactions of selected soil properties (physical, chemical, and biochemical), viz., particle size, pH, enzymatic activity, Soil Organic Carbon (SOC), and Total Nitrogen (TN), across an agricultural landscape used for industrial poultry production. The measured soil properties were separated according to biochemical constituents and soil texture based on the first two principal components, accounting for approximately 60% of the variability across the site. These principal components were then used to generate soil surface maps, indicating areas of possible catalytic activity. Surface maps showed possible increases in biochemical activity around areas of stored poultry litter, suggesting the utility of these methods in determining changes to soil management.

Bacterial Ccommunity Structure and Composition in Soils Under Industrial Poultry Production Activities: An Observational Study

Confinement is the predominant method of producing poultry and eggs for consumption in the US. Because of its high-density approach, the potential health threats regarding pathogenesis in animals and humans have raised concerns. Although there best management practices exist to control the persistence and proliferation of pathogenic bacteria in poultry houses, very little is known about the bacterial communities, and poultry houses are potential pathogen sinks. We assessed the contribution of industrial poultry production to the structure and composition of bacterial communities in the soils at a poultry production site. Soil samples were collected from under poultry housing areas, litter storage areas, and an accompanying pasture adjacent to the production area; and environmental DNA was extracted from the samples. Following validation and amplification, DNA was sequenced using bacterial-tag encoded pyrosequencing. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the bacterial communities in the soils showed no significant differences in species richness according to observed and estimated operational taxonomic units (Chao1 and rarefaction). Proteobacteria were the major phyla present in all samples ranging from 37.1% in the soils under poultry houses to 53.4% of the sequences identified under pasture soils. Significant shifts in specific taxa were observed, including drops in the abundance of Acidobacteria observed from the poultry house to litter storage soils (P < 0.05) α-Proteobacteria increased from poultry house soil (10.9%) to pasture soils (32.8%, P < 0.01) and soils under litter storage (22.3%, P < 0.05). The phyla Bacteroidetes, which were observed between poultry house and pasture soils, dropped significantly from 21.8% to 7.2% (P < 0.05). Clustering exhibited a closer relationship between the soils under pasture and litter storage, while those under the poultry houses were unique. Pathogenic genera were also found in greater abundance under the poultry houses, which raises the question of persistence and re-colonization of bedding material even in the presence of mitigation attempts.