Vegetation-associated impacts on arctic tundra bacterial and microeukaryotic communities.

ABSTRACT: The Arctic is experiencing rapid vegetation changes, such as shrub and tree line expansion, due to climate warming, as well as increased wetland variability due to hydrological changes associated with permafrost thawing. These changes are of global concern because changes in vegetation may increase tundra soil biogeochemical processes that would significantly enhance atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Predicting the latter will at least partly depend on knowing the structure, functional activities, and distributions of soil microbes among the vegetation types across Arctic landscapes. Here we investigated the bacterial and microeukaryotic community structures in soils from the four principal low Arctic tundra vegetation types: wet sedge, birch hummock, tall birch, and dry heath. Sequencing of

SUBMITTER: Shi Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4277566 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature