Seminar of Sergio Morales

Community assembly in pasture soil microbiomes: drivers and links to N2O emissions

Soil microbiomes are intimately linked to global biogeochemical cycles. Despite this our understanding of what controls community assembly processes is still limited. In New Zealand, agriculture and soils play a central part in the economy. Our pasture based system is also directly responsible for 48% of our greenhouse gas emissions, with soils contributing most of the nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions. In this seminar I will provide an overview of work conducted in our lab over the last 10 years linking microbiomes to the greenhouse gas N₂O. We provide general patterns for microbiome and emission changes at country wide scale, and use lab and field based trials to develop a mechanistic understanding of processes that control both community successions and emissions. I will also provide a preview of ongoing work using genome-resolved metagenomic approaches to understand community successions and link specific novel soil species to putative key processes.