Agricultural intensification reduces mycobiome complexity and the abundance of keystone taxa in roots of wheat

Root-associated microbes play a key role in plant performance and productivity, making them important players in agroecosystems. To minimise the deleterious effects of intensive farming, alternative farming practices such as conservation agriculture (e.g., no-tillage) and organic farming are being increasingly adopted. However, very few studies have assessed the impact of these farming practices on the root microbiome and it is still unclear whether agricultural intensification influences network complexity of microbial communities. In this study, we investigated the impact of conventional, no-till and organic farming on wheat root fungal communities using PacBio SMRT sequencing and network analysis on samples collected from 60 farms in Switzerland.