Bacterial communities from blueberry field soil in Maine Targeted loci environmental

Soil bacterial communities are an essential biological indicator of soil health and crop performance. In Maine, wild blueberry farms are experiencing unprecedented temperatures, which could aggravate microbial responses and may harm the crops. To understand how bacterial communities respond to warming during the growing season, we used passive and active open-top chambers to simulate climate warming scenarios in wild blueberry fields. Blueberry Hill Research Field was located in Washington County, Maine, with gravelly sandy loam soils of 4.7 pH and a humid continental temperate climate. The study was set up and conducted during snow-free periods using an experimental design previously described by Chen et al. (2022). Briefly, open-top chambers (OTCs) were used to elevate the soil temperatures in the warming plots more than in the ambient control plots.