Soil microbial responses to drought and exotic plants shift carbon metabolism.

ABSTRACT: Significant gaps in our understanding of how global change drivers interact to affect the resistance and functioning of microbial communities hinders our ability to model ecosystem responses and feedbacks to co-occurring global stressors. Here, we investigated the effects of extreme drought and exotic plants, two of the most significant threats to Mediterranean-type ecosystems, on soil microbial community composition and carbon metabolic genes within a four-year field rainfall manipulation experiment. We combined measurements of bulk microbial and soil properties with high-throughput microbial community analyses to elucidate microbial responses and microbial-mediated alterations to carbon cycling. While microbial responses to experimental droughts were weak, scant rainfall periods resulted

SUBMITTER: Perez Castro S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6776022 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature