Warming treatments shift the temporal dynamics of diversity and composition of bacteria in wild blueberry soils

This study investigates soil bacterial communities response to climate change. Wild blueberry farms are experiencing unprecedented temperature changes, which may exacerbate microbial responses and potentially harm the crop. We employed passive and active open-top chambers to simulate climate warming scenarios, which elevated atmospheric temperatures by 1.2 and 3.3 oC, respectively. Soils in the active warming treatment exhibited significantly lower water content than in ambient conditions. We found significantly higher bacterial evenness and diversity under warming treatments in the early growing season (June).