Dataset Information

Altered soil microbial community at elevated CO(2) leads to loss of soil carbon.

ABSTRACT: Increased carbon storage in ecosystems due to elevated CO(2) may help stabilize atmospheric CO(2) concentrations and slow global warming. Many field studies have found that elevated CO(2) leads to higher carbon assimilation by plants, and others suggest that this can lead to higher carbon storage in soils, the largest and most stable terrestrial carbon pool. Here we show that 6 years of experimental CO(2) doubling reduced soil carbon in a scrub-oak ecosystem despite higher plant growth, offsetting approximately 52% of the additional carbon that had accumulated at elevated CO(2) in aboveground and coarse root biomass. The decline in soil carbon was driven by changes in soil microbial composition and activity. Soils exposed to elevated CO(2) had higher relative abundances of fungi and higher activities of a soil carbon-degrading enzyme, which led to more rapid rates of soil organic matter degradation than soils exposed to ambient CO(2). The isotopic composition of microbial fatty acids confirmed that elevated CO(2) increased microbial utilization of soil organic matter. These results show how elevated CO(2), by altering soil microbial communities, can cause a potential carbon sink to become a carbon source.

SUBMITTER: Carney KM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1820881 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Altered soil microbial community at elevated CO(2) leads to loss of soil carbon.

Carney Karen M KM Hungate Bruce A BA Drake Bert G BG Megonigal J Patrick JP

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20070313 12

Increased carbon storage in ecosystems due to elevated CO(2) may help stabilize atmospheric CO(2) concentrations and slow global warming. Many field studies have found that elevated CO(2) leads to higher carbon assimilation by plants, and others suggest that this can lead to higher carbon storage in soils, the largest and most stable terrestrial carbon pool. Here we show that 6 years of experimental CO(2) doubling reduced soil carbon in a scrub-oak ecosystem despite higher plant growth, offsetti ...[more]

PMID: 17360374

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Project description:Returning crop residues is a possible practice for balancing soil carbon (C) loss. The turnover rate of organic C from crop residues to soil C is dependent on soil microbial community dynamics. However, the relationship between any temporal changes in the soil microbial community after crop straw inputs and the dynamics of straw-C distribution in the soil organic carbon (SOC) pool remains unclear. The present study investigated the allocation of straw-C into soil dissolved organic carbon (DOC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), particulate organic carbon (POC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MaOC) using stable isotope probing, as well as the temporal changes in the soil bacterial and fungal communities using high-throughput sequencing. After the first 180 days of straw decomposition, approximately 3.93% and 19.82% of straw-C was transformed into soil MaOC and POC, respectively, while 0.02% and 2.25% of straw-C was transformed into soil DOC and MBC, respectively. The temporal change of the soil microbial community was positively correlated with the dynamics of straw-C distribution to SOC (R > 0.5, P < 0.05). The copiotrophic bacteria (e.g., Streptomyces, Massilia and Sphingobacterium), cellulolytic bacteria and fungi (e.g., Dyella and Fusarium, Talaromyces), acidophilic bacteria (e.g., Edaphobacter and unclassified Acidobacteriaceae), denitrifying and N-fixing microbes (e.g., Burkholderia-Paraburkholderia, Paraphaeosphaeria and Bradyrhizobium), and fungi unclassified Sordariomycetes were significantly correlated with straw-C distribution to specific SOC fractions (P < 0.05), which explained more than 90% of the variation of straw-C allocation into soils. Copiotrophic, certain cellulolytic and denitrifying microbes had positively correlated with DOC- and MaOC-derived from straw, and other cellulolytic fungi (e.g., Talaromyces) and specific bacteria (e.g. Bradyrhizobium) were positively correlated with POC-derived from straw. Our results highlight that the temporal change of soil microbial community structure well reflects the conversion and distribution process of straw-C to SOC fractions.

Dataset Information

Altered soil microbial community at elevated CO(2) leads to loss of soil carbon.

Publications

Altered soil microbial community at elevated CO(2) leads to loss of soil carbon.

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