The soil microbiome: An essential, but neglected, component of regenerative agroecosystems

Abstract

Regenerative agriculture (RA) is gaining traction globally as an approach for meeting growing food demands while avoiding, or even remediating, the detrimental environmental consequences associated with conventional farming. Momentum is building for science to provide evidence for, or against, the putative ecosystem benefits of RA practices relative to conventional farming. In this perspective article, we advance the argument that consideration of the soil microbiome in RA research is crucial for disentangling the varied and complex relationships RA practices have with the biotic and abiotic environment, outline the expected changes in soil microbiomes under RA, and make recommendations for designing research that will answer the outstanding questions on the soil microbiome under RA. Ultimately, deeper insights into the role of microbial communities in RA soils will allow the development of biologically relevant monitoring tools which will support land managers in addressing the key environmental issues associated with agriculture.

Keywords: Agricultural science; Agricultural soil science; Applied microbiology; Microbiome; Soil science.

Graphical abstract

Figure 1

A summary of the changes in soil microbial communities known to occur under regenerative agriculture (RA) practices, compared to conventional agriculture Gray boxes state the RA practice, and the connected yellow boxes contain the microbiome changes associated with that practice reported by previous research; darker shades of yellow represent increasing supporting literature for those possible impacts on the soil microbiome. Reported differences between RA and conventional agriculture were increased (↑), decreased (↓), non-direction changes (Δ), or no changes. For details on specific compositional or functional profile changes, see section 3 and references therein. Green boxes highlight key knowledge gaps. This figure was created with BioRender.com.