Roughly 50% of the world’s surface area has been converted to grazed land or cultivated crops. Landscape conversion is often dramatically influenced by tillage which has been blamed for reduced carbon storage, increased freshwater sediment loads, and decreased soil biodiversity. Our objective was to determine which aspects of current agricultural systems lead to degradation of soil fertility and lower yield efficiencies compared to perennial grasslands. Building on recent work in
Results/Conclusions
Without tillage, conversion from native tall grass prairie to annual agriculture reduced soil fertility and changed composition of soil biota after only 3 years. We found that readily oxidizable carbon and microbial biomass were significantly lower in annual never-tilled cropland versus prairie. Nematode community structure was significantly different between prairie and never-tilled cropland and nematode assemblages were dominated by basal taxa typical for disturbed, nutrient poor conditions.