The Mixed Cover Crops and Nitrogen Fertilization Decrease the Soil Microbial Dormancy

Microbial dormancy is a fundamental ecological strategy that governs soil microbial persistence, functional stability, and the capacity of microbial communities to respond to environmental change. However, how agricultural management practices influence the soil microbial dormancy remains insufficiently understood. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a long-term field experiment involving three nitrogen fertilization levels and four cover crop treatments to evaluate their effects on soil microbial dormancy. Random forest and variance partitioning analyses were used to identify the key environmental drivers of microbial dormancy. Our results demonstrated that that nitrogen fertilization reduced the soil microbial dormant fraction, with a significant decrease observed under N120 treatment (120 kg N ha−1), where dormancy declined by 7.3