Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Vegetation type, not the legacy of warming, modifies the response of microbial functional genes and greenhouse gas fluxes to drought in oro-arctic and alpine regions
AU - Fry, Ellen L
AU - Ashworth, Deborah
AU - Allen, Kimberley A J
AU - Chardon, Nathalie Isabelle
AU - Rixen, Christian
AU - Björkman, Mats P
AU - Björk, Robert G
AU - Stålhandske, Thomas
AU - Molau, Mathias
AU - Locke-King, Brady
AU - Cantillon, Isabelle
AU - McDonald, Catriona
AU - Liu, Hongwei
AU - De Vries, Franciska T
AU - Ostle, Nick J
AU - Singh, Brajesh K
AU - Bardgett, Richard D
PY - 2023/12/31
Y1 - 2023/12/31
N2 - Climate warming and summer droughts alter soil microbial activity, affecting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in arctic and alpine regions. However, the long-term effects of warming, and implications for future microbial resilience, are poorly understood. Using one alpine and three arctic soils subjected to in situ long-term experimental warming, we simulated drought in laboratory incubations to test how microbial functional-gene abundance affects fluxes in three GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. We found that responses of functional gene abundances to drought and warming are strongly associated with vegetation type and soil carbon. Our sites ranged from a wet, forb dominated, soil carbon-rich systems to a drier, soil carbon-poor alpine site. Resilience of functional gene abundances, and in turn methane and carbon dioxide fluxes, was lower in the wetter, carbon-rich systems. However, we did not detect an effect of drought or warming on nitrous oxide fluxes. All gene-GHG relationships were modified by vegetation type, with stronger effects being observed in wetter, forb-rich soils. These results suggest that impacts of warming and drought on GHG emissions are linked to a complex set of microbial gene abundances and may be habitat-specific.
AB - Climate warming and summer droughts alter soil microbial activity, affecting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in arctic and alpine regions. However, the long-term effects of warming, and implications for future microbial resilience, are poorly understood. Using one alpine and three arctic soils subjected to in situ long-term experimental warming, we simulated drought in laboratory incubations to test how microbial functional-gene abundance affects fluxes in three GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. We found that responses of functional gene abundances to drought and warming are strongly associated with vegetation type and soil carbon. Our sites ranged from a wet, forb dominated, soil carbon-rich systems to a drier, soil carbon-poor alpine site. Resilience of functional gene abundances, and in turn methane and carbon dioxide fluxes, was lower in the wetter, carbon-rich systems. However, we did not detect an effect of drought or warming on nitrous oxide fluxes. All gene-GHG relationships were modified by vegetation type, with stronger effects being observed in wetter, forb-rich soils. These results suggest that impacts of warming and drought on GHG emissions are linked to a complex set of microbial gene abundances and may be habitat-specific.
KW - functional genes
KW - resistance
KW - resilience
KW - methane
KW - microbial community
KW - ITEX
KW - greenhouse gases
KW - carbon dioxide
U2 - 10.1093/femsec/fiad145
DO - 10.1093/femsec/fiad145
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 37951295
VL - 99
JO - FEMS Microbiology Ecology
JF - FEMS Microbiology Ecology
SN - 0168-6496
IS - 12
M1 - fiad145
ER -