Soil management effect in phylogenetic diversity and microbial community composition in two restored inland freshwater wetlands

Wetlands can contribute to the abatement of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere through natural (microbially mediated) sequestration mechanisms and reductions of its more harmful emissions. Restoring degraded wetlands increases their resilience and functionality, hence enhancing their ability to mitigate climate change. Soil scraping and plowing, prevalent agriculture operations, can be modified for its use wetland management. Scraping removes the upper sediment layers, effectively eliminating the most reactive accumulated organic matter. Plowing involves turning over (aeration) the sediment. Both practices are expected to impact microbial processes tied to carbon metabolism. There is a lack of information on the influence of soil actions on the alpha biodiversity and microbial community structure, including carbon-related metabolisms. In this work we hypothesize that these experimental actions affect both microbial biodiversity and microbial community composition and ultimately determine key metabolisms for carbon fluxes that regulate GHG emissions. Our findings provide fundamental knowledge of diversity and microbiome community assembly and how this is impacted by external impacts. Overall, this work confirms the initial hypothesis and demonstrate a strong impact of plowing and scraping actions on the microbial community composition, particularly on microbial community taxa affecting essential metabolisms that regulate greenhouse gas emissions.