Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response
Soils store about four times as much carbon as plant biomass, and soil microbial respiration releases about 60 petagrams of carbon per year to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Short-term experiments have shown that soil microbial respiration increases exponentially with temperature. This informatio...
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ftanucanberra:oai:openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au:1885/75473 2024-01-14T10:04:26+01:00 Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response Karhu, Kristiina Auffret, Marc D Dungait, Jennifer A J Hopkins , David W Prosser , James I Singh, Brajesh K Subke, Jens-Arne Wookey, Philip A Agren, Goran I Sebastia, Maria-Teresa Gouriveau, Fabrice Meir, Patrick http://hdl.handle.net/1885/75473 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13604 https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/5/U3488905xPUB4634.pdf.jpg https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/7/01_Karhu_Temperature_sensitivity_of_2014.pdf.jpg unknown Macmillan Publishers Ltd 0028-0836 http://hdl.handle.net/1885/75473 doi:10.1038/nature13604 https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/5/U3488905xPUB4634.pdf.jpg https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/7/01_Karhu_Temperature_sensitivity_of_2014.pdf.jpg Nature Journal article ftanucanberra https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13604 2023-12-15T09:33:33Z Soils store about four times as much carbon as plant biomass, and soil microbial respiration releases about 60 petagrams of carbon per year to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Short-term experiments have shown that soil microbial respiration increases exponentially with temperature. This information has been incorporated into soil carbon and Earth-system models, which suggest that warming-induced increases in carbon dioxide release from soils represent an important positive feedback loop that could influence twenty-first-century climate change. The magnitude of this feedback remains uncertain, however, not least because the response of soil microbial communities to changing temperatures has the potential to either decrease or increase warming-induced carbon losses substantially. Here we collect soils from different ecosystems along a climate gradient from the Arctic to the Amazon and investigate how microbial community-level responses control the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. We find that the microbial community-level response more often enhances than reduces the mid- to long-term (90 days) temperature sensitivity of respiration. Furthermore, the strongest enhancing responses were observed in soils with high carbon-to-nitrogen ratios and in soils from cold climatic regions. After 90 days, microbial community responses increased the temperature sensitivity of respiration in high-latitude soils by a factor of 1.4 compared to the instantaneous temperature response. This suggests that the substantial carbon stores in Arctic and boreal soils could be more vulnerable to climate warming than currently predicted. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change Australian National University: ANU Digital Collections Arctic Nature 513 7516 81 84 |
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Open Polar |
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Australian National University: ANU Digital Collections |
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ftanucanberra |
language |
unknown |
description |
Soils store about four times as much carbon as plant biomass, and soil microbial respiration releases about 60 petagrams of carbon per year to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Short-term experiments have shown that soil microbial respiration increases exponentially with temperature. This information has been incorporated into soil carbon and Earth-system models, which suggest that warming-induced increases in carbon dioxide release from soils represent an important positive feedback loop that could influence twenty-first-century climate change. The magnitude of this feedback remains uncertain, however, not least because the response of soil microbial communities to changing temperatures has the potential to either decrease or increase warming-induced carbon losses substantially. Here we collect soils from different ecosystems along a climate gradient from the Arctic to the Amazon and investigate how microbial community-level responses control the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. We find that the microbial community-level response more often enhances than reduces the mid- to long-term (90 days) temperature sensitivity of respiration. Furthermore, the strongest enhancing responses were observed in soils with high carbon-to-nitrogen ratios and in soils from cold climatic regions. After 90 days, microbial community responses increased the temperature sensitivity of respiration in high-latitude soils by a factor of 1.4 compared to the instantaneous temperature response. This suggests that the substantial carbon stores in Arctic and boreal soils could be more vulnerable to climate warming than currently predicted. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Karhu, Kristiina Auffret, Marc D Dungait, Jennifer A J Hopkins , David W Prosser , James I Singh, Brajesh K Subke, Jens-Arne Wookey, Philip A Agren, Goran I Sebastia, Maria-Teresa Gouriveau, Fabrice Meir, Patrick |
spellingShingle |
Karhu, Kristiina Auffret, Marc D Dungait, Jennifer A J Hopkins , David W Prosser , James I Singh, Brajesh K Subke, Jens-Arne Wookey, Philip A Agren, Goran I Sebastia, Maria-Teresa Gouriveau, Fabrice Meir, Patrick Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response |
author_facet |
Karhu, Kristiina Auffret, Marc D Dungait, Jennifer A J Hopkins , David W Prosser , James I Singh, Brajesh K Subke, Jens-Arne Wookey, Philip A Agren, Goran I Sebastia, Maria-Teresa Gouriveau, Fabrice Meir, Patrick |
author_sort |
Karhu, Kristiina |
title |
Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response |
title_short |
Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response |
title_full |
Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response |
title_fullStr |
Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response |
title_full_unstemmed |
Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response |
title_sort |
temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response |
publisher |
Macmillan Publishers Ltd |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1885/75473 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13604 https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/5/U3488905xPUB4634.pdf.jpg https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/7/01_Karhu_Temperature_sensitivity_of_2014.pdf.jpg |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change |
op_source |
Nature |
op_relation |
0028-0836 http://hdl.handle.net/1885/75473 doi:10.1038/nature13604 https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/5/U3488905xPUB4634.pdf.jpg https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/75473/7/01_Karhu_Temperature_sensitivity_of_2014.pdf.jpg |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13604 |
container_title |
Nature |
container_volume |
513 |
container_issue |
7516 |
container_start_page |
81 |
op_container_end_page |
84 |
_version_ |
1788058979335667712 |