Microbial diversity in rhizosphere soil (16S RNA sequencing) from different soil histories and plant species

Biodiversity experiments have often shown that diverse plant communities exceed monocultures in above-ground biomass production, and the difference increases over time. Such strengthening biodiversity effects have been explained for instance by higher densities of specialized soil-borne pathogens in monocultures in comparison to diverse plant communities but less is known about the role of beneficial micro-organisms. Here we studied biomass production of eight plant species from monoculture and mixture history backgrounds in response soil micro-organisms that had undergone three years of co-selection with the studied plants.