Microbial growth under drought is confined to distinct taxa and modified by potential future climate conditions.

ABSTRACT: Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of drought events, affecting soil functions including carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling, which are driven by growing microorganisms. Yet we know little about microbial responses to drought due to methodological limitations. Here, we estimate microbial growth rates in montane grassland soils exposed to ambient conditions, drought, and potential future climate conditions (i.e., soils exposed to 6 years of elevated temperatures and elevated CO₂ levels). For this purpose, we combined ¹⁸O-water vapor equilibration with quantitative stable isotope probing (termed 'vapor-qSIP') to measure taxon-specific microbial growth in dry soils. In our experiments, drought caused >90% of bacterial and archaeal taxa to stop div

SUBMITTER: Metze D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10516970 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature