scholarly journals Climate change will lead to pronounced shifts in the diversity of soil microbial communities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Ladau ◽  
Yu Shi ◽  
Xin Jing ◽  
Jin-Sheng He ◽  
Litong Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North America ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Soil Bacteria ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Soil Microbial

ABSTRACTSoil bacteria are key to ecosystem function and maintenance of soil fertility. Leveraging associations of current geographic distributions of bacteria with historic climate, we predict that soil bacterial diversity will increase across the majority (~75%) of the Tibetan Plateau and northern North America if bacterial communities equilibrate with existing climatic conditions. This prediction is possible because the current distributions of soil bacteria have stronger correlations with climate from ~50 years ago than with current climate. This lag is likely associated with the time it takes for soil properties to adjust to changes in climate. The predicted changes are location specific and differ across bacterial taxa, including some bacteria that are predicted to have reductions in their distributions. These findings demonstrate the widespread influence that climate change will have on belowground diversity and highlight the importance of considering bacterial communities when assessing climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems.IMPORTANCEThere have been many studies highlighting how plant and animal communities lag behind climate change, causing extinction and diversity debts that will slowly be paid as communities equilibrate. By virtue of their short generation times and dispersal abilities, soil bacteria might be expected to respond to climate change quickly and to be effectively in equilibrium with current climatic conditions. We found strong evidence to the contrary in Tibet and North America. These findings could significantly improve understanding of climate impacts on soil microbial communities.

scholarly journals Existing Climate Change Will Lead to Pronounced Shifts in the Diversity of Soil Prokaryotes

mSystems ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Ladau ◽  
Yu Shi ◽  
Xin Jing ◽  
Jin-Sheng He ◽  
Litong Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North America ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Soil Bacteria ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Soil Bacterial Diversity

ABSTRACTSoil bacteria are key to ecosystem function and maintenance of soil fertility. Leveraging associations of current geographic distributions of bacteria with historic climate, we predict that soil bacterial diversity will increase across the majority (∼75%) of the Tibetan Plateau and northern North America if bacterial communities equilibrate with existing climatic conditions. This prediction is possible because the current distributions of soil bacteria have stronger correlations with climate from ∼50 years ago than with current climate. This lag is likely associated with the time it takes for soil properties to adjust to changes in climate. The predicted changes are location specific and differ across bacterial taxa, including some bacteria that are predicted to have reductions in their distributions. These findings illuminate the widespread potential of climate change to influence belowground diversity and the importance of considering bacterial communities when assessing climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems.IMPORTANCEThere have been many studies highlighting how plant and animal communities lag behind climate change, causing extinction and diversity debts that will slowly be paid as communities equilibrate. By virtue of their short generation times and dispersal abilities, soil bacteria might be expected to respond to climate change quickly and to be effectively in equilibrium with current climatic conditions. We found strong evidence to the contrary in Tibet and North America. These findings could significantly improve understanding of climate impacts on soil microbial communities.

scholarly journals Long-Term Warming Alters Carbohydrate Degradation Potential in Temperate Forest Soils

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (22) ◽  
pp. 6518-6530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Pold ◽  
Andrew F. Billings ◽  
Jeff L. Blanchard ◽  
Daniel B. Burkhardt ◽  
Serita D. Frey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Carbon Cycling ◽  
Temperate Forest ◽  
Mineral Soil ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Organic Horizon ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Carbohydrate Degradation

ABSTRACTAs Earth's climate warms, soil carbon pools and the microbial communities that process them may change, altering the way in which carbon is recycled in soil. In this study, we used a combination of metagenomics and bacterial cultivation to evaluate the hypothesis that experimentally raising soil temperatures by 5°C for 5, 8, or 20 years increased the potential for temperate forest soil microbial communities to degrade carbohydrates. Warming decreased the proportion of carbohydrate-degrading genes in the organic horizon derived from eukaryotes and increased the fraction of genes in the mineral soil associated withActinobacteriain all studies. Genes associated with carbohydrate degradation increased in the organic horizon after 5 years of warming but had decreased in the organic horizon after warming the soil continuously for 20 years. However, a greater proportion of the 295 bacteria from 6 phyla (10 classes, 14 orders, and 34 families) isolated from heated plots in the 20-year experiment were able to depolymerize cellulose and xylan than bacterial isolates from control soils. Together, these findings indicate that the enrichment of bacteria capable of degrading carbohydrates could be important for accelerated carbon cycling in a warmer world.IMPORTANCEThe massive carbon stocks currently held in soils have been built up over millennia, and while numerous lines of evidence indicate that climate change will accelerate the processing of this carbon, it is unclear whether the genetic repertoire of the microbes responsible for this elevated activity will also change. In this study, we showed that bacteria isolated from plots subject to 20 years of 5°C of warming were more likely to depolymerize the plant polymers xylan and cellulose, but that carbohydrate degradation capacity is not uniformly enriched by warming treatment in the metagenomes of soil microbial communities. This study illustrates the utility of combining culture-dependent and culture-independent surveys of microbial communities to improve our understanding of the role changing microbial communities may play in soil carbon cycling under climate change.

scholarly journals Activation of the SA-Associated Plant Defense Pathway Alters the Composition of Soil Bacterial Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Zhang ◽  
Peter G.L. Klinkhamer ◽  
Klaas Vrieling ◽  
T. Martijn Bezemer
Keyword(s):  
Plant Growth ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Signaling Pathway ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Rhizosphere Soil ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Core Microbiome ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Soil Bacterial ◽  
Sa Signaling

Abstract Background and aimsMany plant species grow better in sterilized than in live soil. Foliar application of SA mitigates this negative effect of live soil on the growth of the plant Jacobaea vulgaris. To examine what causes the positive effect of SA application on plant growth in live soils, we analyzed the effects of SA application on the composition of active rhizosphere bacteria in the live soil. Methods We studied this over four consecutive plant cycles (generations), using mRNA sequencing of the microbial communities in the rhizosphere of J. vulgaris. ResultsOur study shows that the composition of the rhizosphere bacterial communities of J. vulgaris greatly differed among generations. Application of SA resulted in both increases and decreases in a number of active bacterial genera in the rhizosphere soil, but the genera that were affected by the treatment differed among generations. In the first generation, there were no genera that were significantly affected by the SA treatment, indicating that induction of the SA defense pathway in plants does not lead to immediate changes in the soil microbial community. 89 species out of the total 270 (32.4%) were present in all generations in all soils of SA-treated and control plants suggesting that these make up the “core” microbiome. On average in each generation, 72.9% of all genera were present in both soils. Application of SA to plants significantly up-regulated genera of Caballeronia, unclassified Cytophagaceae, Crinalium and Candidatus Thermofonsia Clade 2, and down-regulated genera of Thermomicrobiales, unclassified Rhodobacterales, Paracoccus and Flavihumibacter. While the functions of many of these bacteria are poorly understood, bacteria of the genus Caballeronia play an important role in fixing nitrogen and promoting plant growth, and hence this suggests that activation of the SA signaling pathway in J. vulgaris plants may select for bacterial genera that are beneficial to the plant. ConclusionsOverall, our study shows that aboveground activation of defenses in the plant affects soil microbial communities and, as soil microbes can greatly influence plant performance, this implies that induction of plant defenses can lead to complex above-belowground feedbacks. Further studies should examine how activation of the SA signaling pathway in the plant changes the functional genes of the rhizosphere soil bacterial community.

scholarly journals Extreme drought triggers transition to an alternative soil microbial state

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Cordero ◽  
Ainara Leizeaga ◽  
Lettice C Hicks ◽  
Johannes Rousk ◽  
Richard D Bardgett
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Extreme Drought ◽  
Alternative States ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Fungal Community Structure ◽  
Functional States

Soil microbial communities play a pivotal role in regulating ecosystem functioning but they are increasingly threatened by human-driven perturbations, including climate extremes, which are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity with climate change. It has been demonstrated that soil microbial communities are sensitive to climate extremes, such as drought, and that effects can be long-lasting. However, considerable uncertainties remain concerning the response of soil microbial communities to increases in the intensity and frequency of climate extremes, and their potential to trigger transitions to alternative, and potentially deleterious, taxonomic and functional states. Here we demonstrate that extreme, frequent drought induces a shift to an alternative soil microbial state characterised by strongly altered bacterial and fungal community structure of reduced complexity and functionality. Moreover, we found that this drought-induced alternative microbial state persisted after returning soil to its previous moisture status. However, bacterial communities were able to adapt by increasing their growth capacity, despite being of reduced diversity. Abrupt transitions to alternative states are well documented in aquatic and terrestrial plant communities in response to human-induced perturbations, including climate extremes. Our results provide experimental evidence that such transitions also occur in soil microbial communities in response to extreme drought with potentially deleterious consequences for soil health.

scholarly journals Soil Microbial Community Responses to a Decade of Warming as Revealed by Comparative Metagenomics

2013 ◽  
Vol 80 (5) ◽  
pp. 1777-1786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengwei Luo ◽  
Luis M. Rodriguez-R ◽  
Eric R. Johnston ◽  
Liyou Wu ◽  
Lei Cheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Cellulose Degradation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Predictive Ability ◽  
Metagenomic Data ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Soil Microbial

ABSTRACTSoil microbial communities are extremely complex, being composed of thousands of low-abundance species (<0.1% of total). How such complex communities respond to natural or human-induced fluctuations, including major perturbations such as global climate change, remains poorly understood, severely limiting our predictive ability for soil ecosystem functioning and resilience. In this study, we compared 12 whole-community shotgun metagenomic data sets from a grassland soil in the Midwestern United States, half representing soil that had undergone infrared warming by 2°C for 10 years, which simulated the effects of climate change, and the other half representing the adjacent soil that received no warming and thus, served as controls. Our analyses revealed that the heated communities showed significant shifts in composition and predicted metabolism, and these shifts were community wide as opposed to being attributable to a few taxa. Key metabolic pathways related to carbon turnover, such as cellulose degradation (∼13%) and CO2production (∼10%), and to nitrogen cycling, including denitrification (∼12%), were enriched under warming, which was consistent with independent physicochemical measurements. These community shifts were interlinked, in part, with higher primary productivity of the aboveground plant communities stimulated by warming, revealing that most of the additional, plant-derived soil carbon was likely respired by microbial activity. Warming also enriched for a higher abundance of sporulation genes and genomes with higher G+C content. Collectively, our results indicate that microbial communities of temperate grassland soils play important roles in mediating feedback responses to climate change and advance the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of community adaptation to environmental perturbations.

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