Microbial community Diversity and Structure within Organic and Conventional Farming systems in Central Highlands of Kenya. Farming systems comparison trials (SysCom)in central Highlands, Kenya

Soil microorganisms play a critical role in global carbon and nitrogen cycles. They are also involved in production and consumption of greenhouse emission in soils. However, vast regions of natural habitats have been destroyed while plant protection measures have caused human health problems, and they are responsible for about 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. Conventional farming system undermine the diversity and function of soil microbial communities in many ways. An eco-friendly alternative is offered by organic farming system, that aims to minimize its impact on the environment by using crop rotation, pathogen-resistant cultivars, organic manure and limited amounts of chemical pesticides. Changes in soil microbial community structure and diversity affects the overall soil health and eventually agricultural output. Therefore, understanding how major changes in land management affect the structure of soil’s microbial community could provide an important index for assessing the relative ability of soils to respond to future disturbance. However, due to the complexity of soil communities and efforts required in conventional microbial cultivation and molecular-based approach, only a limited number of soil environments have been surveyed. A better understanding of the structure, functions, and interactions of the different microbial communities would be obtained by application of novel high throughput techniques that target active members of the microbial communities. This study therefore seeks to link the structure and function of microbial communities within the long term experiment trial sites in central highlands of Kenya using metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis based on both DNA and RNA.