Soil Microbial Communities and Global Climate Change— Methanotrophic and Methanogenic Communities as Paradigms

2006 ◽  
pp. 285-304
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Soil Microbial

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.

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 Microbial community shifts reflect losses of native soil carbon with pyrogenic and fresh organic matter additions and are greatest in low-carbon soils

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thea Whitman ◽  
Silene DeCiucies ◽  
Kelly Hanley ◽  
Akio Enders ◽  
Jamie Woolet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Organic Matter ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Microbial Community ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Fresh Organic Matter ◽  
Pyrogenic Organic Matter

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in regulating global climate change, carbon and nutrient cycling in soils, and soil moisture. Organic matter (OM) additions to soils can affect the rate at which SOC is mineralized by microbes, with potentially important effects on SOC stocks. Understanding how pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) affects the cycling of native SOC (nSOC) and the soil microbes responsible for these effects is important for fire-affected ecosystems as well as for biochar-amended systems. We used an incubation trial with five different soils from National Ecological Observatory Network sites across the US and 13C-labelled 350°C corn stover PyOM and fresh corn stover OM to trace nSOC-derived CO2 emissions with and without PyOM and OM amendments. We used high-throughput sequencing of rRNA genes to characterize bacterial, archaeal, and fungal communities and their response to PyOM and OM in soils that were previously stored at -80°C. We found that the effects of amendments on nSOC-derived CO2 reflected the unamended soil C status, where relative increases in C mineralization were greatest in low-C soils. OM additions produced much greater effects on nSOC-CO2 emissions than PyOM additions. Furthermore, the magnitude of microbial community composition change mirrored the magnitude of increases in nSOC-CO2, indicating a specific subset of microbes were likely responsible for the observed changes in nSOC mineralization. However, PyOM responders differed across soils and did not necessarily reflect a common “charosphere”. Overall, this study suggests that soils that already have low SOC may be particularly vulnerable to short-term increases in SOC loss with OM or PyOM additions. Importance Soil organic matter (SOM) has an important role in global climate change, carbon and nutrient cycling in soils, and soil moisture dynamics. Understanding the processes that affect SOM stocks is important for managing these functions. Recently, understanding how fire-affected organic matter (or “pyrogenic” organic matter (PyOM)) affects existing SOM stocks has become increasingly important, both due to changing fire regimes, and to interest in “biochar” – pyrogenic organic matter that is produced intentionally for carbon management or as an agricultural soil amendment. We found that soils with less SOM were more prone to increased losses with PyOM (and fresh organic matter) additions, and that soil microbial communities changed more in soils that also had greater SOM losses with PyOM additions. This suggests that soils that already have low SOM content may be particularly vulnerable to short-term increases in SOM loss, and that a subset of the soil microbial community is likely responsible for these effects.

scholarly journals Long-Term Drought and Warming Alter Soil Bacterial and Fungal Communities in an Upland Heathland

Ecosystems ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona M. Seaton ◽  
Sabine Reinsch ◽  
Tim Goodall ◽  
Nicola White ◽  
Davey L. Jones ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Fungal Communities ◽  
Its2 Region ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Summer Drought ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Soil Bacterial

AbstractThe response of soil microbial communities to a changing climate will impact global biogeochemical cycles, potentially leading to positive and negative feedbacks. However, our understanding of how soil microbial communities respond to climate change and the implications of these changes for future soil function is limited. Here, we assess the response of soil bacterial and fungal communities to long-term experimental climate change in a heathland organo-mineral soil. We analysed microbial communities using Illumina sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and ITS2 region at two depths, from plots undergoing 4 and 18 years of in situ summer drought or warming. We also assessed the colonisation of Calluna vulgaris roots by ericoid and dark septate endophytic (DSE) fungi using microscopy after 16 years of climate treatment. We found significant changes in both the bacterial and fungal communities in response to drought and warming, likely mediated by changes in soil pH and electrical conductivity. Changes in the microbial communities were more pronounced after a longer period of climate manipulation. Additionally, the subsoil communities of the long-term warmed plots became similar to the topsoil. Ericoid mycorrhizal colonisation decreased with depth while DSEs increased; however, these trends with depth were removed by warming. We largely ascribe the observed changes in microbial communities to shifts in plant cover and subsequent feedback on soil physicochemical properties, especially pH. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering changes in soil microbial responses to climate change across different soil depths and after extended periods of time.

scholarly journals Soil microbial community responses to climate extremes: resistance, resilience and transitions to alternative states

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1794) ◽  
pp. 20190112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard D. Bardgett ◽  
Tancredi Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Microbial Community ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Soil Microbial Community ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Alternative States ◽  
Community Responses ◽  
Extrinsic Factors ◽  
Soil Microbial

A major challenge for advancing our understanding of the functional role of soil microbial communities is to link changes in their structure and function under climate change. To address this challenge requires new understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the capacity of soil microbial communities to resist and recover from climate extremes. Here, we synthesize emerging understanding of the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence the resistance and resilience of soil microbial communities to climate extremes, with a focus on drought, and identify drivers that might trigger abrupt changes to alternative states. We highlight research challenges and propose a path for advancing our understanding of the resistance and resilience of soil microbial communities to climate extremes, and of their vulnerability to transitions to alternative states, including the use of trait-based approaches. We identify a need for new approaches to quantify resistance and resilience of soil microbial communities, and to identify thresholds for transitions to alternative states. We show how high-resolution time series coupled with gradient designs will enable detecting response patterns to interacting drivers. Finally, to account for extrinsic factors, we suggest that future studies should use environmental gradients to track soil microbial community responses to climate extremes in space and time. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions’.

scholarly journals Response of Microbial Communities and Their Metabolic Functions to Drying–Rewetting Stress in a Temperate Forest Soil

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Liu ◽  
Katharina M. Keiblinger ◽  
Sonja Leitner ◽  
Uwe Wegner ◽  
Michael Zimmermann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Soil Microbial Communities ◽  
Biogeochemical Cycles ◽  
Functional Responses ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Metabolic Functions ◽  
Drying And Rewetting ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Simultaneous Variation

Global climate change is predicted to alter drought–precipitation patterns, which will likely affect soil microbial communities and their functions, ultimately shifting microbially-mediated biogeochemical cycles. The present study aims to investigate the simultaneous variation of microbial community compositions and functions in response to drought and following rewetting events, using a soil metaproteomics approach. For this, an established field experiment located in an Austrian forest with two levels (moderate and severe stress) of precipitation manipulation was evaluated. The results showed that fungi were more strongly influenced by drying and rewetting (DRW) than bacteria, and that there was a drastic shift in the fungal community towards a more Ascomycota-dominated community. In terms of functional responses, a larger number of proteins and a higher functional diversity were observed in both moderate and severe DRW treatments compared to the control. Furthermore, in both DRW treatments a rise in proteins assigned to “translation, ribosomal structure, and biogenesis” and “protein synthesis” suggests a boost in microbial cell growth after rewetting. We also found that the changes within intracellular functions were associated to specific phyla, indicating that responses of microbial communities to DRW primarily shifted microbial functions. Microbial communities seem to respond to different levels of DRW stress by changing their functional potential, which may feed back to biogeochemical cycles.

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