Recovery of Soil Microbial Metabolism After Rewetting Depends on Interacting Environmental Conditions and Changes in Functional Groups and Life History Strategies
Li, Xiankun ; Leizeaga, Ainara LU ; Rousk, Johannes LU
; Zhou, Siyuan
LU
; Hugelius, Gustaf
and Manzoni, Stefano
(2024)
In Global Change Biology
30(10).
- Abstract
Climate change is causing an intensification of soil drying and rewetting events, altering microbial functioning and potentially destabilizing soil organic carbon. After rewetting, changes in microbial community carbon use efficiency (CUE), investment in life history strategies, and fungal to bacterial dominance co-occur. Still, we have yet to generalize what drives these dynamic responses. Here, we collated 123 time series of microbial community growth (G, sum of fungal and bacterial growth, evaluated by leucine and acetate incorporation, respectively) and respiration (R) after rewetting and calculated CUE = G/(G + R). First, we characterized CUE recovery by two metrics: maximum CUE and time to maximum CUE. Second, we translated... (More)
Climate change is causing an intensification of soil drying and rewetting events, altering microbial functioning and potentially destabilizing soil organic carbon. After rewetting, changes in microbial community carbon use efficiency (CUE), investment in life history strategies, and fungal to bacterial dominance co-occur. Still, we have yet to generalize what drives these dynamic responses. Here, we collated 123 time series of microbial community growth (G, sum of fungal and bacterial growth, evaluated by leucine and acetate incorporation, respectively) and respiration (R) after rewetting and calculated CUE = G/(G + R). First, we characterized CUE recovery by two metrics: maximum CUE and time to maximum CUE. Second, we translated microbial growth and respiration data into microbial investments in life history strategies (high yield (Y), resource acquisition (A), and stress tolerance (S)). Third, we characterized the temporal change in fungal to bacterial dominance. Finally, the metrics describing the CUE recovery, investment in life history strategies, and fungal to bacterial dominance after rewetting were explained by environmental factors and microbial properties. CUE increased after rewetting as fungal dominance declined, but the maximum CUE was explained by the CUE under moist conditions, rather than specific environmental factors. In contrast, higher soil pH and carbon availability accelerated the decline of microbial investment in stress tolerance and fungal dominance. We conclude that microbial CUE recovery is mostly driven by the shifting microbial community composition and the metabolic capacity of the community, whereas changes in microbial investment in life history strategies and fungal versus bacterial dominance depend on soil pH and carbon availability.
(Less)
- author
- Li, Xiankun
; Leizeaga, Ainara
LU
; Rousk, Johannes
LU
; Zhou, Siyuan
LU
; Hugelius, Gustaf
and Manzoni, Stefano
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-10
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- carbon use efficiency, drying and rewetting, fungal to bacterial ratio, life history strategy, microbial community, soil respiration
- in
- Global Change Biology
- volume
- 30
- issue
- 10
- article number
- e17522
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:39360459
- scopus:85205528706
- ISSN
- 1354-1013
- DOI
- 10.1111/gcb.17522
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 2efc4348-88c0-4b16-92d7-be1de2d63127
- date added to LUP
- 2024-12-09 11:14:24
- date last changed
- 2025-06-10 01:12:29
@article{2efc4348-88c0-4b16-92d7-be1de2d63127,
abstract = {{<p>Climate change is causing an intensification of soil drying and rewetting events, altering microbial functioning and potentially destabilizing soil organic carbon. After rewetting, changes in microbial community carbon use efficiency (CUE), investment in life history strategies, and fungal to bacterial dominance co-occur. Still, we have yet to generalize what drives these dynamic responses. Here, we collated 123 time series of microbial community growth (G, sum of fungal and bacterial growth, evaluated by leucine and acetate incorporation, respectively) and respiration (R) after rewetting and calculated CUE = G/(G + R). First, we characterized CUE recovery by two metrics: maximum CUE and time to maximum CUE. Second, we translated microbial growth and respiration data into microbial investments in life history strategies (high yield (Y), resource acquisition (A), and stress tolerance (S)). Third, we characterized the temporal change in fungal to bacterial dominance. Finally, the metrics describing the CUE recovery, investment in life history strategies, and fungal to bacterial dominance after rewetting were explained by environmental factors and microbial properties. CUE increased after rewetting as fungal dominance declined, but the maximum CUE was explained by the CUE under moist conditions, rather than specific environmental factors. In contrast, higher soil pH and carbon availability accelerated the decline of microbial investment in stress tolerance and fungal dominance. We conclude that microbial CUE recovery is mostly driven by the shifting microbial community composition and the metabolic capacity of the community, whereas changes in microbial investment in life history strategies and fungal versus bacterial dominance depend on soil pH and carbon availability.</p>}},
author = {{Li, Xiankun and Leizeaga, Ainara and Rousk, Johannes and Zhou, Siyuan and Hugelius, Gustaf and Manzoni, Stefano}},
issn = {{1354-1013}},
keywords = {{carbon use efficiency; drying and rewetting; fungal to bacterial ratio; life history strategy; microbial community; soil respiration}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{10}},
publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
series = {{Global Change Biology}},
title = {{Recovery of Soil Microbial Metabolism After Rewetting Depends on Interacting Environmental Conditions and Changes in Functional Groups and Life History Strategies}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17522}},
doi = {{10.1111/gcb.17522}},
volume = {{30}},
year = {{2024}},
}