Microbial mediation of biogeochemical cycles revealed by simulation of global changes with soil transplant and cropping.

ABSTRACT: Despite microbes' key roles in driving biogeochemical cycles, the mechanism of microbe-mediated feedbacks to global changes remains elusive. Recently, soil transplant has been successfully established as a proxy to simulate climate changes, as the current trend of global warming coherently causes range shifts toward higher latitudes. Four years after southward soil transplant over large transects in China, we found that microbial functional diversity was increased, in addition to concurrent changes in microbial biomass, soil nutrient content and functional processes involved in the nitrogen cycle. However, soil transplant effects could be overridden by maize cropping, which was attributed to a negative interaction. Strikingly, abundances of nitrogen and carbon cycle genes were increased by

SUBMITTER: Zhao M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4184012 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature