Soil Microbial Communities in Diverse Agroecosystems Exposed to the Herbicide Glyphosate

Abstract

Increasing the efficiency of food production systems while reducing negative environmental effects remains a key societal challenge to successfully meet the needs of a growing global population. The herbicide glyphosate has become a nearly ubiquitous component of agricultural production across the globe, enabling an increasing adoption of no-till agriculture. Despite this widespread use, there remains considerable debate on the consequences of glyphosate exposure. In this paper, we examine the effect of glyphosate on soil microbial communities associated with the roots of glyphosate-resistant crops. Using metabarcoding techniques, we evaluated prokaryotic and fungal communities from agricultural soil samples ( n  = 768). No effects of glyphosate were found on soil microbial communities associated with glyphosate-resistant corn and soybean varieties across diverse farming systems.