Sonoran Desert historical agricultural crops soil microbiome

Although soil has been a central piece in agricultural knowledge for most of recorded history, introductions of exotic plant assemblages can produce loss of soil quality, especially in more fragile ecosystems such as drylands. Here we investigate the impact of native and exotic plant assemblages associated with ethno-agricultural traditions of Tucson, AZ (USA) on soil microbial communities using 16S rRNA (bacteria and archaea) and ITS (fungi) metabarcoding.