Increasing aridity reduces soil microbial diversity and abundance in global drylands.

ABSTRACT: Soil bacteria and fungi play key roles in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, yet our understanding of their responses to climate change lags significantly behind that of other organisms. This gap in our understanding is particularly true for drylands, which occupy ∼41% of Earth´s surface, because no global, systematic assessments of the joint diversity of soil bacteria and fungi have been conducted in these environments to date. Here we present results from a study conducted across 80 dryland sites from all continents, except Antarctica, to assess how changes in aridity affect the composition, abundance, and diversity of soil bacteria and fungi. The diversity and abundance of soil bacteria and fungi was reduced as aridity increased. These results were largely driven by the negative

SUBMITTER: Maestre FT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4697385 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature