Soil microbial responses to increased moisture and organic resources along a salinity gradient in a polar desert.

ABSTRACT: Microbial communities in extreme environments often have low diversity and specialized physiologies suggesting a limited resistance to change. The McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) are a microbially dominated, extreme ecosystem currently undergoing climate change-induced disturbances, including the melting of massive buried ice, cutting through of permafrost by streams, and warming events. These processes are increasing moisture across the landscape, altering conditions for soil communities by mobilizing nutrients and salts and stimulating autotrophic carbon inputs to soils. The goal of this study was to determine the effects of resource addition (water/organic matter) on the composition and function of microbial communities in the MDV along a natural salinity gradient representing an additional g

SUBMITTER: Van Horn DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4018898 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature