Nottingham, AT orcid.org/0000-0001-9421-8972, Scott, JJ, Saltonstall, K et al. (5 more authors) (2022) Microbial diversity declines in warmed tropical soil and respiration rise exceed predictions as communities adapt. Nature Microbiology, 7 (10). pp. 1650-1660. ISSN 2058-5276
Abstract
Perturbation of soil microbial communities by rising temperatures could have important consequences for biodiversity and future climate, particularly in tropical forests where high biological diversity coincides with a vast store of soil carbon. We carried out a 2-year in situ soil warming experiment in a tropical forest in Panama and found large changes in the soil microbial community and its growth sensitivity, which did not fully explain observed large increases in CO₂ emission. Microbial diversity, especially of bacteria, declined markedly with 3 to 8 °C warming, demonstrating a breakdown in the positive temperature-diversity relationship observed elsewhere. The microbial community composition shifted with warming, with many taxa no longer detected and others enriched, including thermophilic taxa. This community shift resulted in community adaptation of growth to warmer temperatures, which we used to predict changes in soil CO₂ emissions. However, the in situ CO₂ emissions exceeded our model predictions threefold, potentially driven by abiotic acceleration of enzymatic activity. Our results suggest that warming of tropical forests will have rapid, detrimental consequences both for soil microbial biodiversity and future climate.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2022. This is an author produced version of an article published in Nature Microbiology. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jul 2022 10:51 |
Last Modified: | 22 May 2023 22:18 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41564-022-01200-1 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:189179 |