Agricultural intensification and the functional capacity of soil microbes on smallholder African farms -swkenya

Since 2005, the Africa Green Revolution has aimed to increase crop yields on small-scale farms in sub-Saharan Africa by promoting the increased use of mineral fertilizers. Microbial ecologists have begun to understand the relationship between nutrient enrichment and bacterial community composition but little-to-no work has been done to understand the effects of different agricultural management practices on microbial diversity and function in tropical systems. For this study, we collected soil samples from 21 farms of three management types, high mineral fertilizer use, low mineral fertilizer use, and improved fallow.