Geodiversity structures microbial community in a semi-arid shrubland. Soil

Small scale geodiversity, spatially patterned by variations in the soil profile depth and soil stoniness, was found to explain shrub mortality in a water limited semi-arid shrubland, in drought years. Shrub mortality occurred mostly in low geodiversity homogeneous hillslopes, whereas high geodiversity heterogeneous hillslopes were found to support stable shrub communities. The current project investigated the effect of geodiversity on the microbial diversity in the soil and the role of soil microbiota in supporting shrubs. This was done with 16S rRNA and ITS1 metabarcoding to account for prokaryotes and fungi.