Soil properties in jhum field
The carbon in the soil helps in the formation of soil structure, stores the water and nutrients that need for plant roots and soil microorganisms to grow. The availability of high C exuded by roots increases the microbial growth pattern, microbial abundance, and diversity in the rhizospheric soil than the non- rhizospheric soil or BS (Fig 8 a,b) (66, 67).
In 2008, Marcel et al. (68) hypothesized that microbes play a significant role in productivity in the nutrient-poor ecosystem, and therefore, microbial diversity is negatively correlated with nutrient availability. In our study in the jhum ecosystem, we have observed that microbial diversity is changing in different fallow periods along with rhizosphere niches of the crops grown in the field. The microbial diversity has increased between the 5 to 8 years fallow periods, but it gradually decreases and becomes stable in 20 years fallow periods. Since the long term fallow period contains more humus and nutrient-rich environment than short term fallow periods jhumfield soil. Interestingly, it is in line with the hypothesis. Our study has generated interesting data on dynamics of bacterial diversity in crop rhizosphere niches and in stressed soil ecosystems, and these data indicate a more supporting role of bacterial community to crops grown in the stressed soil system. Our study might also explain why microbial inoculum is essential for better crop performance in the future nutrient-poor soil ecosystem.