Metagenomic analysis revealed the soil microbial community and functional genes under conservation tillage

Conservational tillage as an efficient alternative to mitigate soil degradation has attracted worldwide attention but influences of conservation tillage on soil microbial community and especially function remain unclear and need further explore. In this work, shotgun metagenomics sequencing of bulk soil was performed to examine the taxonomic and functional community variations under three tillage regimes, namely no-tillage with residue (maize straw) return (NTS), moldboard plow with residue return (MPS) and moldboard plow without residue return (MPN) in northeast China.