Steering the soil microbiome by repeated litter addition

Here we study how repeated litter additions steer soil microbial community structure and functioning. We set up a nine-month, full-factorial, reciprocal litter transplant experiment with soils and litters from six plant species (three grasses and three trees). Each soil was incubated with litter from each plant species for three subsequent periods of three months. We extracted DNA from the soils at the start of the experiment and after three and nine months of litter incubation. DNA was amplified using PCR reactions targeting the 16S (for bacteria) and ITS gene (for fungi).