Implications of Soil Biodiversity for Sustainable Organic Matter Management - Sustainable Management of Soil Organic Matter - page 367

pseudomonad population appears to have greater diversity compared with
the FYM plot. However, diversity may be masked in the FYM population
by the most abundant isolates belonging to relatively few related fingerprint
groups, which will dominate both the BIOLOG™ assays and the plate
counts.
Conclusion
There was clearly an effect of the different organic inputs on the two
plots. The Sewage plot had a lower overall microbial population but had an
apparent increase in both the catabolic diversity of fast-growing culturable
bacteria measured by BIOLOG™ and the genetic diversity of the
pseudomonad population. The results indicate a real difference in
the population structure of part of the bacterial communities of the two
Woburn plots, probably due to the presence of heavy metals, although it is
also possible that there were subtle effects arising from the different organic
matter inputs. This preliminary investigation demonstrates how valuable
multidisciplinary approaches are for studying soil quality and that different
approaches used to study the dynamics or diversity of the soil should be
compared. These initial results are promising as they indicate that there is
some agreement between different approaches. However, further research
is required to evaluate the significance of the results obtained and to
determine what are the most relevant microbial indicators of soil quality.
Acknowledgements
IACR receives grant-aided support from the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council of the UK. Support from MAFF is also
acknowledged.
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