Mimicking climate warming effects on Alaskan soil microbial communities via gradual temperature increase.

ABSTRACT: Climate change can trigger shifts in community structure and may therefore pose a severe threat to soil microbial communities, especially in high northern latitudes such as the Arctic. Arctic soils are covered by snow and ice throughout most of the year. This insulation shields them from high temperature variability and low surface temperatures. If this protective layer thaws, these soils are predicted to warm up at 1.5x to 4x the rate of other terrestrial biomes. In this study, we sampled arctic soils from sites with different elevations in Alaska, incubated them for 5 months with a simulated, gradual or abrupt temperature increase of +5 °C, and compared bacterial and fungal community compositions after the incubation. We hypothesized that the microbial communities would not significantly

SUBMITTER: Ballhausen MB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7244726 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature