Duan, P. orcid.org/0000-0001-7758-7573, Fu, R., Nottingham, A.T. orcid.org/0000-0001-9421-8972 et al. (5 more authors) (2023) Tree species diversity increases soil microbial carbon use efficiency in a subtropical forest. Global Change Biology. ISSN 1354-1013
Abstract
Plant communities strongly influence soil microbial communities and, in turn, soil carbon (C) cycling. Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is an important parameter for predicting soil C accumulation, yet how plant and soil microbial community traits influence microbial CUE remains poorly understood. Here, we determined how soil microbial CUE is influenced by plant and soil microbial community traits, by studying a natural gradient of plant species diversity in a subtropical forest. Our results showed that microbial CUE increased with increasing tree species diversity, suggesting a correlation between plant community traits and soil C storage. The specific soil properties that explained the greatest variation in microbial CUE were associated with microbial communities (biomass, enzyme activities and the ratio of oligotrophic to copiotrophic taxa); there were weaker correlations with plant-input properties, soil chemistry and soil organic C quality and its mineral protection. Overall, high microbial CUE was associated with soil properties correlated with increased tree species diversity: higher substrate availability (simple SOM chemical structures and weak mineral organic associations) and high microbial growth rates despite increased community dominance by oligotrophic strategists. Our results point to a mechanism by which increased tree species diversity may increase the forest C sink by affecting carbon use with the soil microbial community.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
Keywords: | microbial community composition, microbial CUE, microbial growth strategies, mineral protection, plant species diversity, SOC quality |
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: | 06 Nov 2023 13:07 |
Last Modified: | 06 Nov 2023 13:08 |
Published Version: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16... |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/gcb.16971 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:204931 |