Soil Aggregate Microbiome commB. Cover crop changes soil microbial community network structure and functional potentials for nitrogen cycling within individual aggregates at 10 mg level

Winter cover crop in agroecosystem were proposed to maintains and improves soil fertility through accelerating nutrient turnover mediated by microorganisms. Increased spatial resolution of individual soil aggregates heterogeneity could reveal more precise responses of soil prokaryotic communities and functional potentials to diversified cover crop systems. Here, we collected 180 aggregates from a long-term field experiment in Lelystad (Netherlands), including three treatments (with winter cover crop rye or rye/pea and without cover crop). Soil DNA were extracted from individual soil aggregates, which mass from 2 to 8 mg, for 16S rRNA gene, nifH gene, amoA-bac and commA&B gene amplicon sequencing.