Recovery of soil microbial community structure and activity following partial sterilization

Soil microbial communities (bacteria, fungi, archea, protozoa) directly and indirectly influence all other trophic interactions in soil. Partial soil sterilization by gamma irradiation is emerging as a promising defanauting technique to remove specific target group of organisms with minimal soil disturbance.

While considering the selective elimination of a target organism, it is crucial that microbial community has recovered to its original state.

The microbial community should return back to its original state shortly after partial sterilization, but to date there are no studies on the dynamics of microbial recovery following partial sterilization.