Soil fungi in a temperate agroforestry system

Cropland agroforestry systems are sustainable land-use systems with numerous environmental advantages over monoculture croplands including promotion of soil life. This study aimed to investigate tree-species and tree-distance effects on soil biota in a temperate agroforestry system. Our study was conducted at a paired alley-cropping agroforestry and monoculture cropland system. The tree rows of the agroforestry system comprised of blocks of either poplar Jacometti 78B, poplar Max 1 or black locust. Within the agroforestry system, soil microbial communities were collected along transects spanning from the centre of the tree rows into the crop rows. The community composition of fungi was deciphered using amplicon sequencing (Illumina MiSeq 2x 300 bp, V3 chemistry).