Interaction between microbiome and soil organic carbon (SOC) in integrated systems of agricultural production (ISAP)

• Grant number: 22/10276-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2023
• End date: July 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Soil Science
• Principal Investigator: Fernando Dini Andreote
• Grantee: Alberto Vinicius Sousa Rocha
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Company: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Politécnica (EP)
• Associated research grant: 20/15230-5 - Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Innovation - RCG2I, AP.PCPE
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/06313-2 - Allocation and persistence of microbial necromass in temperate and tropical soils, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

The agriculture is facing one of the biggest challenges in its history, seeking to produce high quality food while reducing the use of external inputs and minimizing its environmental impact. To this end, integrated systems of agricultural production (ISAP) have been disseminated as resilient, productive, and sustainable strategies, capable of producing food, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester part of the atmospheric CO2. However, few scientific works have focused on understanding the changes arising from these forms of land use and occupation in the life (structure, diversity, and activity) and death (biomass products and waste - henceforth microbial "necromass") of the soil microbiome and the effects of these eventual changes on the soil ability to form and store organic carbon. Thus, this study aims to understand the influence of the adoption of ISAP (crop, livestock, and/or forest) on the dynamics of the soil microbiome (living and dead) and its respective effects on the soil ability to store CO2 from the atmosphere in the form of soil organic carbon (SOC) under different productive contexts (temporal and spatial). For this, this project will integrate molecular, isotopic and elementary approaches, as well as conventional soil physical and chemical analysis to unravel the phenomena involved in these processes of a biotic and abiotic order in contrasting environments in Brazil. The results obtained in this study may reveal microbial processes and shape the success of the adoption of strategies based on integrated systems to reduce the environmental effects of the agricultural sector via CO2 sequester from the atmosphere and storage in the form of SOC.Keywords: Climate Change, Carbon Cycle, Integrated Systems, Soil Microbiology and Microbial Necromass.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

ROCHA, Alberto Vinicius Sousa. Microbial necromass, carbon and agriculture: combining living and dead microbes to reveal carbon dynamics under agroforestry in the Amazon. 2024. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALA/BC) Piracicaba.