Soil warming increases the number of growing bacterial taxa but not their growth rates.

ABSTRACT: Soil microorganisms control the fate of soil organic carbon. Warming may accelerate their activities putting large carbon stocks at risk of decomposition. Existing knowledge about microbial responses to warming is based on community-level measurements, leaving the underlying mechanisms unexplored and hindering predictions. In a long-term soil warming experiment in a Subarctic grassland, we investigated how active populations of bacteria and archaea responded to elevated soil temperatures (+6°C) and the influence of plant roots, by measuring taxon-specific growth rates using quantitative stable isotope probing and ¹⁸O water vapor equilibration. Contrary to prior assumptions, increased community growth was associated with a greater number of active bacterial taxa rather than gener

SUBMITTER: Metze D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10889357 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature