Oct 15 2014
The health of soil microbes is important to our agricultural systems as they are critical drivers that help maintain soil ecosystem functions. The response of soil microbes to climate change will have repercussions in soil resilience and the future stability of our agricultural productivity.
Due to the importance of this topic, the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America, are sponsoring a session titled Climatic Stress Effects on Soil Microbial Communities Agroecosystems, on Wednesday, Nov. 5, as part of their upcoming annual meeting. Grand Challenges, Great Solutions will be held in Long Beach, CA, Nov. 2-5, 2014.
Veronica Acosta-Martinez, a researcher with the USDA-ARS is an organizer of the session. “Little is really known on how the soil microbial component responds to climatic stress like this in agroecosystems, as most research has been done in natural-undisturbed ecosystems. These may have or not the same response to climate change,” says Acosta-Martinez. “This session comes at the right time, especially for California with a large agricultural base that is experiencing extreme heat and drought.”