Metabolic function in jhum field non-cropped and cropped soil
A total of 263 KEGG pathways were assigned to the bacterial community. The most prevalent functions (p < 0.001) for all samples in the BS were ‘ABC transporter’ along with ‘Amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism’ and ‘Lippopolysaccarides biosynthesis’ (Fig 7a). Upon comparison at 95 % confidence interval, we observed that the proportion of ABC transporters was greater in 5-year fallow period than 20-year fallow in BS and LARS but was lower in 5-year fallow period than 20-years in SARS and RI. Proportions of pyruvate metabolism pathways were significantly (p < 0.01) greater in short fallow periods than long fallow periods in BS and LARS. In contrast, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism, lipopolysaccharides biosynthesis, were significantly greater in long fallow periods (Fig 7a,b). In RI only, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism have greater abundance in long fallow periods. Interestingly BS and LARS have a significantly higher sequence abundance of Benzoate degradation in short fallow periods. In contrast, SARS and RI have greater sequence abundance in long fallow periods (Fig 7a-d).