Differences in soil bacterial diversity: Driven by contemporary disturbances or historical contingencies?

Abstract

Contemporary environmental disturbances and historical contingencies are considered to be major factors driving current differences in microbial diversity. However, little was known about their relative importance. This study combines culture-independent molecular techniques and advanced statistical analyses to examine quantitatively the relative importance of contemporary disturbances and historical contingencies in influencing large-scale soil bacterial diversity using a large set of manipulated field-based molecular data (212 samples). Contemporary disturbances were represented by applications of different fertilizers N, P, K and organic manure (OM) and historical contingencies by distinc..