In a 2024 study, Noah Fierer and colleagues examined whether the composition of soil microbial communities could affect plants’ flavor chemistry. Whereas Khalid et al. (2017) showed that adding specific bacterial or fungal strains to soil can yield increased phenolic content in spinach crops, Fierer and team applied intact microbial communities gathered from ecologically distinct settings across Colorado, including areas of ponderosa pine forest and dry pasture, to mustard plants and evaluated the flavor compounds in the plants’ seeds. This ensured that the microbial conditions in their experiment would better reflect the variation and complexity of naturally occurring communities.
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Verbal·Information and Ideas·Inferences
easyBased on the text, what is the most likely reason Fierer and colleagues chose to avoid the method used in the spinach study?
A
The diversity of species of microorganisms in the soil from the spinach study was already abnormally high before the researchers added further microorganisms.
B
The microbial community in the soil from the spinach study affected plants’ nutrition, not their flavor chemistry.
C
The composition of microorganisms in the soil in the spinach study may not have been representative of a naturally existing composition.
D
The microbial community in the soil from the spinach study likely included similar species to those in wild soils.