Studying the effects of microbial traits on carbon cycling in agricultural soils

Two main challenges with connecting microbial communities to ecosystem function are that environmental conditions and interactions between species can alter microbial function in communities. Therefore, I argue for the importance of studying microbial contributions to ecosystem function in a community context across realistic environmental variation. I describe how I am linking microbial communities to ecosystem function by measuring soil microbial traits via metagenomic analysis and functional assays in a large-scale rainfall and soil carbon manipulation experiment in soybean fields. Through these methods, I will assess how microbial communities alter soil carbon storage and crop growth.