Soil Metagenomics to Construct Indicators of Soil Degradation

Garrett, Jumpponen, and Herman are beginning a new soil metagenomics project funded by USAID (2008-2010) in collaboration with a large international and interdisciplinary team within the USAID Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) program.  We will use GS FLX to characterize microbial communities in soils along a gradient of soil degradation.  The project will link soil microbial community data to (1) chemical and physical features of the soil, (2) soil management policy, and (3) socioeconomic factors driving the policy-making process.  A primary goal of the project is to identify components of the microbial community that are indicators of stages in the process of soil degradation.  We will compare this process in soils in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Zambia in collaboration with national research teams in these countries.  Training is an important component, and direct access to a GS FLX system at KSU will contribute to training of students involved in this project.  The reduced in-house fee structures will also allow us to expand our international collaborations in follow-up projects.