Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming
Microbial decomposition of soil carbon in high-latitude tundra underlain with permafrost is one of the most important, but poorly understood, potential positive feedbacks of greenhouse gas emissions from terrestrial ecosystems into the atmosphere in a warmer world. Using integrated metagenomic techn...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org/ark:/13030/qt0819x7ft 2023-05-15T17:57:23+02:00 Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming Xue, K Yuan, MM Shi, ZJ Qin, Y Deng, Y Cheng, L Wu, L He, Z Van Nostrand, JD Bracho, R Natali, S Schuur, EAG Luo, C Konstantinidis, KT Wang, Q Cole, JR Tiedje, JM Luo, Y Zhou, J 595 - 600 2016-05-25 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0819x7ft unknown eScholarship, University of California qt0819x7ft https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0819x7ft public Nature Climate Change, vol 6, iss 6 Atmospheric Sciences Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Environmental Science and Management article 2016 ftcdlib 2021-04-16T07:10:53Z Microbial decomposition of soil carbon in high-latitude tundra underlain with permafrost is one of the most important, but poorly understood, potential positive feedbacks of greenhouse gas emissions from terrestrial ecosystems into the atmosphere in a warmer world. Using integrated metagenomic technologies, we showed that the microbial functional community structure in the active layer of tundra soil was significantly altered after only 1.5 years of warming, a rapid response demonstrating the high sensitivity of this ecosystem to warming. The abundances of microbial functional genes involved in both aerobic and anaerobic carbon decomposition were also markedly increased by this short-term warming. Consistent with this, ecosystem respiration (R eco) increased up to 38%. In addition, warming enhanced genes involved in nutrient cycling, which very likely contributed to an observed increase (30%) in gross primary productivity (GPP). However, the GPP increase did not offset the extra R eco, resulting in significantly more net carbon loss in warmed plots compared with control plots. Altogether, our results demonstrate the vulnerability of active-layer soil carbon in this permafrost-based tundra ecosystem to climate warming and the importance of microbial communities in mediating such vulnerability. Article in Journal/Newspaper permafrost Tundra University of California: eScholarship |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
ftcdlib |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Atmospheric Sciences Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Environmental Science and Management |
spellingShingle |
Atmospheric Sciences Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Environmental Science and Management Xue, K Yuan, MM Shi, ZJ Qin, Y Deng, Y Cheng, L Wu, L He, Z Van Nostrand, JD Bracho, R Natali, S Schuur, EAG Luo, C Konstantinidis, KT Wang, Q Cole, JR Tiedje, JM Luo, Y Zhou, J Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming |
topic_facet |
Atmospheric Sciences Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Environmental Science and Management |
description |
Microbial decomposition of soil carbon in high-latitude tundra underlain with permafrost is one of the most important, but poorly understood, potential positive feedbacks of greenhouse gas emissions from terrestrial ecosystems into the atmosphere in a warmer world. Using integrated metagenomic technologies, we showed that the microbial functional community structure in the active layer of tundra soil was significantly altered after only 1.5 years of warming, a rapid response demonstrating the high sensitivity of this ecosystem to warming. The abundances of microbial functional genes involved in both aerobic and anaerobic carbon decomposition were also markedly increased by this short-term warming. Consistent with this, ecosystem respiration (R eco) increased up to 38%. In addition, warming enhanced genes involved in nutrient cycling, which very likely contributed to an observed increase (30%) in gross primary productivity (GPP). However, the GPP increase did not offset the extra R eco, resulting in significantly more net carbon loss in warmed plots compared with control plots. Altogether, our results demonstrate the vulnerability of active-layer soil carbon in this permafrost-based tundra ecosystem to climate warming and the importance of microbial communities in mediating such vulnerability. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Xue, K Yuan, MM Shi, ZJ Qin, Y Deng, Y Cheng, L Wu, L He, Z Van Nostrand, JD Bracho, R Natali, S Schuur, EAG Luo, C Konstantinidis, KT Wang, Q Cole, JR Tiedje, JM Luo, Y Zhou, J |
author_facet |
Xue, K Yuan, MM Shi, ZJ Qin, Y Deng, Y Cheng, L Wu, L He, Z Van Nostrand, JD Bracho, R Natali, S Schuur, EAG Luo, C Konstantinidis, KT Wang, Q Cole, JR Tiedje, JM Luo, Y Zhou, J |
author_sort |
Xue, K |
title |
Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming |
title_short |
Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming |
title_full |
Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming |
title_fullStr |
Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming |
title_full_unstemmed |
Tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming |
title_sort |
tundra soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate warming |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0819x7ft |
op_coverage |
595 - 600 |
genre |
permafrost Tundra |
genre_facet |
permafrost Tundra |
op_source |
Nature Climate Change, vol 6, iss 6 |
op_relation |
qt0819x7ft https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0819x7ft |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1766165794207563776 |