Livestock exclusion reduces the spillover effects of pastoral agriculture on soil bacterial communities in adjacent forest fragments

Abstract

Summary Forest‐to‐pasture conversion is known to cause global losses in plant and animal diversity, yet impacts of livestock management after such conversion on vital microbial communities in adjoining natural ecosystems remain poorly understood. We examined how pastoral land management practices impact soil microorganisms in adjacent native forest fragments, by comparing bacterial communities sampled along 21 transects bisecting pasture–forest boundaries. Our results revealed greater bacterial taxon richness in grazed pasture soils and the reduced dispersal of pasture‐associated taxa into adjacent forest soils when land uses were separated by a boundary fence. Relative abundance distributions of forest‐associated taxa (i.e., Proteobacteria and Nitrospirae ) and a pasture‐associated taxon (i.e., Firmicutes ) also suggest a greater impact of pastoral land uses on forest fragment soil bacterial communities when no fence is present. Bacterial community richness and composition were most related to changes in soil physicochemical variables commonly associated with agricultural fertilization, including concentrations of Olsen P, total P, total Cd, delta 15 N and the ratio of C:P and N:P. Overall, our findings demonstrate clear, and potentially detrimental effects of agricultural disturbance on bacterial communities in forest soils adjacent to pastoral land. We provide evidence that simple land management decisions, such as livestock exclusion, can mitigate the effects of agriculture on adjacent soil microbial communities.

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