Impacts of experimental atmospheric warming on soil microbial community structure in a tallgrass prairie
Global surface temperature is predicted to increase by 1.4 to 5.8℃ by the end of this century. However, the impacts of this projected warming on soil carbon balance and budget of terrestri alecosystems are not clear. One major source of the uncertainty stems from warm ing effects on soil microbes, which exert dominant influence on soil organic car bon decomposition and storage in terrestrial ecosystems. We have therefore conducted an experiment in a tallgrass prairie ecosystem in the US Great Plains to study soil microbial responses to artificial warming of about 1.8℃. Our data showed that warming did not induce significant differences in soil microbial biomas ssize, but increased microbial biomass C∶Nratio. Also, warming caused an increase in bacterial contribution and a decrease in fungal contribution to the total microbial PLFAs, consequently inducing an increase in the ratio of fungi to bacteria within the whole soil microbial community. Moreover, principle component analysis of substrate utilization patterns and the profiles of phospholipid fatt yacids showed that warming caused a shift in soil microbial community structure . Together, our results indicate that this shift in microbial community structure induced by experimental warming may be attributed to the increase in soil fungal dominance and the decrease in bacterial dominance. The observed shift in soil microbial community structure may increase microbial carbon use efficiency and benefit organic carbon protection in the soil.
国家科技期刊平台
NSTL
万方数据
维普
