Impacts of Projected Climate Warming and Wetting on Soil Microbial Communities in Alpine Grassland Ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau

DNA, Bacterial Bacterial 16S rRNA 550 Nitrogen Climate Change Alpine grassland Warming and wetting Soil 03 medical and health sciences Bacterial Proteins Ammonia RNA, Ribosomal, 16S XXXXXX - Unknown Climate change Phylogeny Enzyme Assays 0303 health sciences Bacteria Microbiota 500 Biodiversity Sequence Analysis, DNA Nitrogen Cycle 15. Life on land Grassland Nitrification Enzyme Activation Genes, Bacterial 13. Climate action Denitrification Environmental Monitoring
DOI: 10.1007/s00248-017-1098-4 Publication Date: 2017-11-09T17:43:25Z
ABSTRACT
Climate change is projected to have impacts on precipitation and temperature regimes in drylands of high elevation regions, with especially large effects in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. However, there was limited information about how the projected climate change will impact on the soil microbial community and their activity in the region. Here, we present results from a study conducted across 72 soil samples from 24 different sites along a temperature and precipitation gradient (substituted by aridity index ranging from 0.079 to 0.89) of the Plateau, to assess how changes in aridity affect the abundance, community composition, and diversity of bacteria, ammonia-oxidizers, and denitrifers (nirK/S and nosZ genes-containing communities) as well as nitrogen (N) turnover enzyme activities. We found V-shaped or inverted V-shaped relationships between the aridity index (AI) and soil microbial parameters (gene abundance, community structures, microbial diversity, and N turnover enzyme activities) with a threshold at AI = 0.27. The increasing or decreasing rates of the microbial parameters were higher in areas with AI < 0.27 (alpine steppes) than in mesic areas with 0.27 < AI < 0.89 (alpine meadow and swamp meadow). The results indicated that the projected warming and wetting have a strong impact on soil microbial communities in the alpine steppes.
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