soil microbial commnunity in the farming-pastoral ecotone of northern China

Previous studies have found that land use conversion usually profoundly influences soil properties and microbial diversity. It was easy to find thatthe conversions in those previous studies were largely unidirectional without reverse changes. In this study, 36 paired soil samples from farmlands and grasslands in the FPEN, where land use changed every 3 to 4 years on average, were collected and analyzed using high-throughput sequencing.