Effects of Vineyard Agro-management Practices on Soil Microbial Community Composition, and Diversity

Changes in land use strongly affect biological and physico-chemical structure and characteristics, which are strongly related to agricultural conversion of natural habitats to man-made usage. These changes are among the most important and not always beneficial that affect loss of habitats. The vineyards in the basaltic soils of the Golan-heights are currently a driving force in land-use change. Such changes could have an important effect on the soil microbial community that are playing an important role in maintaining stable functioning of soil ecosystems. This study investigates the microbial communities in five different agro-managements by using molecular tools that can determine the differences in microbial community structure and functions. There were significant differences in soil microbial community composition and diversity where the organic management (MO) was found to significantly enhance the bacterial community in comparison to the other managements.Our finding elucidates the importance of microbial functions and their categories that may be differentiated by their composition. To our knowledge, this study is among the first reports which provides insight into the potential function of the bacterial community in a vineyard setting under different agro- management systems.