The soil microbiome dynamics following microbial invasions

The risk where food demand will transcend crop production, propels the application of microbial technologies, including the provision of microbial inoculants to boost crop productivity. This approach is considered more sustainable and benign as it bypasses societal and environmental concerns from chemical inputs. However, there is a growing concern that these inoculants may become invasive. Thus, this thesis aims to investigate whether soil inoculation by microbes could alter the structure, composition, and metabolic potential of native soil microbiome. By making use the ecological concept of microbial invasion, we (i) explore the pattern and mechanism of Gram-positive spore-forming bacterial invasion, imposed by Bacillus spp; (ii) foster the understanding on microbial community-level consequences of soil microbial inoculation; (iii) examine the role of protists’ selective predation on the success of bacterial releases in soils; (iv) propose mechanistic framework, through resource competition and protist predation, on how microbial inoculants shift soil resident community structure and functioning.