No favorable effect of reduced tillage on microbial community diversity in a silty loam soil (Belgium)

•No favorable effect of reduced tillage on microbial communities.•No influence of crop residue management on microbial communities.•A loess-derived soil and an oceanic temperate climate might explain the results.

Among the soil management practices used to promote sustainable agriculture, reduced tillage and retention of residues from the previous crop are reported to enhance significantly both soil fertility and crop productivity. Here, high-throughput sequencing (454 technology) was used to see how the tillage regime (conventional vs. reduced tillage) and the fate of crop residues (retention or removal) affect microbial communities at two sampling depths (top soil: 0–5 cm and deeper soil: 15–20 cm) in a fertile silty loam soil in Belgium. All combinations of these three factors were studied. After 6 years of conversion from conventional to reduced tillage, depth emerged as the main factor responsible for variation in microbial diversity, tillage regime ranked second, and finally, crop residue fate had no influence on microbial diversity. For both bacteria and fungi, the diversity appeared higher in the top soil than in the deeper soil, and surprisingly, higher under conventional than under reduced tillage. These differences are explained by changes in community composition due to taxon loss rather than taxon replacement. The specific local set of environmental conditions (a loess-derived soil and an oceanic temperate climate) may explain these results. These observations raise the question: does impoverishment in indicator taxa influence soil processes, and thus crop production? To answer this question, we discuss how the presence of certain indicator taxa liable to play an ecological role might relate to crop productivity.