Taxonomic and Functional Responses of Soil Microbial Communities to Annual Removal of Aboveground Plant Biomass.

ABSTRACT: Clipping, removal of aboveground plant biomass, is an important issue in grassland ecology. However, few studies have focused on the effect of clipping on belowground microbial communities. Using integrated metagenomic technologies, we examined the taxonomic and functional responses of soil microbial communities to annual clipping (2010-2014) in a grassland ecosystem of the Great Plains of North America. Our results indicated that clipping significantly (P < 0.05) increased root and microbial respiration rates. Annual temporal variation within the microbial communities was much greater than the significant changes introduced by clipping, but cumulative effects of clipping were still observed in the long-term scale. The abundances of some bacterial and fungal lineages including Ac

SUBMITTER: Guo X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5990867 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature