Boreal Forest Agriculture

Climate change has expanded the northern boundaries of food production; however, a comprehensive understanding of how land conversion to agriculture in these regions will alter soil microbial communities and their biogeochemical cycling functions is currently incomplete and poorly understood. Understanding how soil microbial systems are altered by land conversion at different stages post-conversion provides information on how best to manage these expanding agricultural regions in a way that is sustainable at both the local level (e.g., enhanced fertility) and within a global context (e.g., reduced C and N losses). In this study, we investigated the soil microbiome at the current northern boundary of agriculture in Ontario Canada, using paired sites to compare baseline mature forest conditions with those of adjacent fields converted from forest to agriculture 10 years ago but 50 years ago. Our objective was to evaluate post-land conversion changes in microbial functional potential, diversity, and community composition in a chronosequence according to time since conversion.