Plant Soil Interactions

Soils are highly diverse. A hand full of soil contains billions of bacteria and tens of thousands taxa of bacteria, fungi and other soil biota. In other words, microbes represent the unseen majority of life on Earth. The significance of soil microbial diversity for plants and for the functioning of agricultural and natural ecosystems is still poorly understood. In our work we investigate how changes in soil microbial biodiversity and land use impact plants and ecosystem functioning. Specific attention is given to one of the oldest and most widespread symbiosis on the Earth, the symbiosis between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. We investigate effects of AM fungi and AM fungal diversity on plant growth, nutrient cycling and ecosystem sustainability. Our results demonstrate that soil microbial communities enhance the sustainability of agro-ecosystems by promoting plant nutrient uptake and reducing nutrient losses. Our recent results revealed that the loss of soil biodiversity impairs ecosystem functioning and reduces ecosystem multifunctionality.

• Potentials to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from Swiss agriculture
  Necpalova, M; Lee, J; Skinner, C; Buchi, L; Wittwer, R; Gattinger, A; van der Heijden, M; Mader, P; Charles, R; Berner, A; Mayer, J; Six, J
  AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT, 265 84-102; 10.1016/j.agee.2018.05.013 OCT 1 2018
• A global meta-analysis of yield stability in organic and conservation agriculture
  Knapp, Samuel; van der Heijden, Marcel G. A.
  NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 9 10.1038/s41467-018-05956-1 SEP 7 2018
• Linking microbial co-occurrences to soil ecological processes across a woodland-grassland ecotone
  Banerjee, S; Thrall, PH; Bissett, A; van der Heijden, MGA; Richardson, AE
  ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION, 8 (16):8217-8230; 10.1002/ece3.4346 AUG 2018
• Keystone taxa as drivers of microbiome structure and functioning
  Banerjee, S; Schlaeppi, K; van der Heijden, MGA
  NATURE REVIEWS MICROBIOLOGY, 16 (9):567-576; 10.1038/s41579-018-0024-1 SEP 2018
• Conservation tillage and organic farming induce minor variations in Pseudomonas abundance, their antimicrobial function and soil disease resistance
  Dennert F; Imperiali N; Staub C; Schneider J; Laessle T; Zhang T; Wittwer R; van der Heijden MG; Smits THM; Schlaeppi K; Keel C; Maurhofer M
  FEMS MICROBIOLOGY ECOLOGY, 94 (8):10.1093/femsec/fiy075 AUG 2018
• Impact of organic and conventional farming systems on wheat grain uptake and soil bioavailability of zinc and cadmium
  Schweizer SA; Seitz B; van der Heijden MGA; Schulin R; Tandy S
  SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT, 639 608-616; 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.187 OCT 15 2018
• Improvement of soil structure through organic crop management, conservation tillage and grass-clover ley
  Puerta, VL; Pereira, EIP; Wittwer, R; van der Heijden, M; Six, J
  SOIL & TILLAGE RESEARCH, 180 1-9; 10.1016/j.still.2018.02.007 AUG 2018
• Root exudate metabolites drive plant-soil feedbacks on growth and defense by shaping the rhizosphere microbiota
  Lingfei Hu, Christelle AM Robert, Selma Cadot, Xi Zhang, Meng Ye, Beibei Li, Daniele Manzo, Noemie Chervet, Thomas Steinger, Marcel GA van der Heijden, Klaus Schlaeppi & Matthias Erb
  NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 9: 2738   10.1038/s41467-018-05122-7 JUL 16 2018
• Non-Mycorrhizal Plants: The Exceptions that Prove the Rule
  Cosme, M; Fernandez, I; Van der Heijden, MGA; Pieterse, CMJ
  Trends in Plant Science, 23 (7):577-587; 10.1016/j.tplants.2018.04.004 JUL 2018
• Plant endophytes and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi alter plant competition
  Zhou, Y; Li, X; Gao, Y; Liu, H; Gao, YB; van der Heijden, MGA; Ren, AZ
  Functional Ecology, 32 (5):1168-1179; https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13084 MAY 2018
• Linking diversity, synchrony and stability in soil microbial communities
  Wagg, C; Dudenhoeffer, JH; Widmer, F; van der Heijden, MGA
  Functional Ecology, 32 (5):1280-1292; https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13056 MAY 2018
• Cropping practices manipulate abundance patterns of root and soil microbiome members paving the way to smart farming (vol 6, 14, 2018)
  Hartman, K; van der Heijden, MGA; Wittwer, RA; Banerjee, S; Walser, JC; Schlaeppi, K
  MICROBIOME, 6 10.1186/s40168-018-0456-x APR 24 2018
• Plant-Soil Feedback: Bridging Natural and Agricultural Sciences 
  Mariotte, Pierre; Mehrabi, Zia; Bezemer, T. Martijn; et al. 
  TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION, 33 (2): 129-142 FEB 2018 Review (Details)
• Detecting macroecological patterns in bacterial communities across independent studies of global soils 
  Ramirez, Kelly S.; Knight, Christopher G.; de Hollander, Mattias; et al. 
  NATURE MICROBIOLOGY, 3 (2): 189-196, 10.1038/s41564-017-0062-x  FEB 2018

• Soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning
• Mycorrhizal ecology
• Ecosystem sustainability 
• Microbial control of nutrient cycling and plant nutrient uptake

• Ecosystem ecology and ecosystem multifunctionality
• Molecular cross-talk between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
• Plant-microbe interactions
• Responses of plants and soil organisms to agricultural management and environmental change