Fire affects the taxonomic and functional composition of soil microbial communities, with cascading effects on grassland ecosystem functioning.

Autor: Yang S; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China., Zheng Q; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China., Yang Y; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China., Yuan M; Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA., Ma X; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China., Chiariello NR; Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, USA., Docherty KM; Department of Biological Sciences, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA., Field CB; Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, USA., Gutknecht JLM; Department of Soil Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Halle, Germany., Hungate BA; Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA.; Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA., Niboyet A; Institut d'Ecologie et des Sciences de l'Environnement de Paris (Sorbonne Université, CNRS, INRA, IRD, Université Paris Diderot, UPEC), Paris, France.; AgroParisTech, Paris, France., Le Roux X; Laboratoire d'Ecologie Microbienne, CNRS, INRA, Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, UMR INRA 1418, UMR CNRS 5557, Villeurbanne, France., Zhou J; State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.; Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA.; Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Global change biology [Glob Chang Biol] 2020 Feb; Vol. 26 (2), pp. 431-442. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Oct 26.
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14852
Abstrakt: Fire is a crucial event regulating the structure and functioning of many ecosystems. Yet few studies have focused on how fire affects taxonomic and functional diversities of soil microbial communities, along with changes in plant communities and soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics. Here, we analyze these effects in a grassland ecosystem 9 months after an experimental fire at the Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment site in California, USA. Fire altered soil microbial communities considerably, with community assembly process analysis showing that environmental selection pressure was higher in burned sites. However, a small subset of highly connected taxa was able to withstand the disturbance. In addition, fire decreased the relative abundances of most functional genes associated with C degradation and N cycling, implicating a slowdown of microbial processes linked to soil C and N dynamics. In contrast, fire stimulated above- and belowground plant growth, likely enhancing plant-microbe competition for soil inorganic N, which was reduced by a factor of about 2. To synthesize those findings, we performed structural equation modeling, which showed that plants but not microbial communities were responsible for significantly higher soil respiration rates in burned sites. Together, our results demonstrate that fire 'reboots' the grassland ecosystem by differentially regulating plant and soil microbial communities, leading to significant changes in soil C and N dynamics.
(© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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