Soil Bacterial and Fungal Richness Forecast Patterns of Early Pine Litter Decomposition.

ABSTRACT: Discovering widespread microbial processes that drive unexpected variation in carbon cycling may improve modeling and management of soil carbon (Prescott, 2010; Wieder et al., 2015a, 2018). A first step is to identify community features linked to carbon cycle variation. We addressed this challenge using an epidemiological approach with 206 soil communities decomposing Ponderosa pine litter in 618 microcosms. Carbon flow from litter decomposition was measured over a 6-week incubation. Cumulative CO₂ from microbial respiration varied two-fold among microcosms and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from litter decomposition varied five-fold, demonstrating large functional variation despite constant environmental conditions where strong selection is expected. To investigate microbial fe

SUBMITTER: Albright MBN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7677502 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature