Abstract
(Sub-project to 838.06.080) This proposal aims to assess the baseline variation (also called the normal operating range, or NOR) of soil function across an extended range of Dutch soils and crops typically used in agriculture. The ultimate aim is to provide experimental tools for use by regulatory agencies in order to assess the effects of transgenic plants, as well as a basic set of data on the variance of these parameters to weigh the effects against. As major effects on soil functioning are expected to come from the plant, and since soil microorganisms (bacteria, archaea, fungi and the next-higher trophic level protozoa) can be considered to represent the most important determinants in the (biogeochemical) functioning of soil as well as the trophic level that is most directly interacting with the plant, the emphasis of the work in this project will be on these microbial groups. We will apply, and partially finetune, a consolidated set of traditional and advanced tools to assess microbial function and diversity in agricultural soils. On top of this, we will use stable isotope probing as a tool that assesses the flow of carbon into the soil microbiota. Thus, a consolidated set of tools for ecological risk assessment will be applied across a range of field soils sampled over four growth seasons. This will yield both a toolbox and a dataset that allows risk assessers to weigh putative effects of GM plants against the baseline. The proposed work is closely connected to an existing ERGO project that assesses the baseline, as well as the effects of two transgenic plants, in a more limited study, in potato. It will effectively expand the work and the expertise, including a much larger range of soils, crops and tools for ecological endpoint assessment.
Netherlands