Open AccessDetermining an ideal sampling density for microbial community analyses of farm fields
Author(s) -
Rottler Caitlin M.,
Martyn Trace E.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
agrosystems, geosciences and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2639-6696
DOI - 10.1002/agg2.20156
Subject(s) - sampling (signal processing) , sample (material) , sample size determination , statistics , environmental science , abundance (ecology) , field (mathematics) , variation (astronomy) , microbial population biology , sampling design , soil test , soil science , mathematics , soil water , ecology , computer science , biology , chemistry , environmental health , population , filter (signal processing) , chromatography , computer vision , medicine , physics , astrophysics , pure mathematics , bacteria , genetics
Soil microbial communities represent an important indicator of soil health. Laboratories that provide microbial community analyses to farmers recommend submitting a single sample comprising 12–15 soil cores mixed together, but the instructions do not specify field size. Soil cores can be time consuming to collect and analyses are expensive to run, so it is important to identify the number of samples necessary to return reliable data without becoming unnecessarily time consuming to collect. In this study, we tested different sample densities using samples taken from five fields in Oklahoma and one in Kansas. The amount of variation in abundance of some microbial groups decreased significantly with increasing sample density, suggesting that higher sampling densities are preferable to lower ones. In addition, results indicate that changing sampling densities has the potential to introduce variation. Sampling density should therefore be maintained when samples are to be compared with one another.