Soil-Borne Pathogens Reflect Agricultural Land-Use Legacies

Sammanfattning

Historical land-use changes shape present-day biodiversity through legacy effects, but the duration and mechanisms of these legacies are poorly understood. We used historical land-use maps in two Swedish landscapes across three centuries to examine the persistent influence of historical land use on plant and soil microbial communities. Overall, bacteria showed stronger legacy effects than fungi, but effects varied across functional groups of plant-associated and free-living taxa. However, soil-borne plant pathogenic fungi showed a persisting influence of arable land use which gradually disappeared after similar to 150 years, suggesting that land-use legacies decay over time. This dilution could relate to changing plant communities but also to changes in microbial associations, as suggested by species co-occurrence patterns over time. Our findings provide novel and crucial information on the duration of land-use legacies and single out soil-borne plant pathogens as key indicator groups of historical land use in present-day ecosystems.

Nyckelord

land-use change; legacy decay; legacy effects; pathogens; soil microbes

Publicerad i

Ecology Letters
2026, volym: 29, nummer: 2, artikelnummer: e70332
Utgivare: WILEY

SLU författare

• Ranheim Sveen, Tord

  • Institutionen för ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Riggi, Laura

  • Institutionen för ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    
  • Wageningen University and Research

• Bengtsson, Jan

  • Institutionen för ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Viketoft, Maria

  • Institutionen för ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Bahram, Mohammad

  • Institutionen för ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    
  • Aarhus Universitet
  • Tartu Ülikool

UKÄ forskningsämne

Mikrobiologi
Ekologi

Publikationens identifierare

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70332

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/146319