Cattle slurry application impacts soil ecosystem resistance to flooding

Soils and their indigenous microbiota are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic stresses and climate change. In an effort to understand how the provision of soil ecosystem services will evolve under such pressures, the stability of microbial community functioning and composition needs to be assessed. The overall aim of this study was to investigate soil microbiome responses to perturbations relevant to agriculture and climate change, namely animal slurry application and flooding. Microbiome functioning was assessed by carbon utilisation profiles, rates of litter decomposition, potential nitrification and potential denitrification, while microbiome composition was determined using 16S rRNA sequencing.