Impacts of Nitrogen Addition on the Soil Microbial Community in Grass Versus Legume Soil

The soil microbial community (SMC) plays a key role in various ecosystem functions. The addition of nitrogen can alter the SMC, which can affect how soil completes its tasks. Grasses and legumes are prominent crop types and given what we know about the importance of the SMC, a better understanding of the difference in the SMC between legume and grass crops is important. The purpose of this project is to identify how crop legacy influences soil microbial community responses to nitrogen addition. To accomplish this goal, we performed controlled nitrogen addition experiments to observe how nitrogen impacts soil microbes associated with grass versus legume plant communities. Specifically, we compared the changes of microbial biomass as well as fungal to bacteria ratios in grass plots versus legume plots based on differing levels of nitrogen addition. We found that there was a difference in the microbial biomass and fungal to bacteria ratio between the crop legacies