Research Article

Impact of No-Tillage and Conventional Tillage Systems on Soil Microbial Communities

Table 4

PLFA biomarkers and ratios in no-till (NT) and conventional-till (CT) soils*.

Tillage treatmentDepth (cm)Fungi/bacteriaG+/G− bacteriaFungiBacteriaAM fungiActinobacteria
(mol%)(nmol g−1)(mol%)(nmol g−1)(mol%)(nmol g−1)(mol%)(nmol g−1)

NT0–50.08a1.48a3.97a4.47a53.1a50.9a3.89a4.32a2.18a2.09a
NT5–150.03b1.76a2.29b0.76b56.8b21.3b2.93b1.13bc2.61a1.11b
CT0–50.07a1.54a3.87a1.41b53.0a20.9b3.27ab1.17b2.41a0.99bc
CT5–150.04b1.84a2.00b0.68b57.0b16.9c2.83b0.83c2.90a0.77c

G+/G− bacteria: ratio of Gram-positive to Gram-negative bacterial PLFA.
*Means ( ) followed by the same letter in a column are not significantly different (Tukey, ).