Fast and persistent responses of alpine permafrost microbial communities to in situ warming ...

• Main Authors: Perez-Mon, Carla, Stierli, Beat, Plötze, Michael, Frey, Beat
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2022
• Subjects: Alpine; Climate change; Microbial community; Permafrost; Transplantation; Warming; permafrost
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000518960; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/518960

Global warming in mid-latitude alpine regions results in permafrost thawing, together with greater availability of carbon and nutrients in soils and frequent freeze–thaw cycles. Yet it is unclear how these multifactorial changes will shape the 1 m-deep permafrost microbiome in the future, and how this will in turn modulate microbially-mediated feedbacks between mountain soils and climate (e.g. soil CO2 emissions). To unravel the responses of the alpine permafrost microbiome to in situ warming, we established a three-year experiment in a permafrost monitoring summit in the Alps. Specifically, we simulated conditions of warming by transplanting permafrost soils from a depth of 160 cm either to the active-layer topsoils in the north-facing slope or in the warmer south-facing slope, near the summit. qPCR-based and amplicon sequencing analyses indicated an augmented microbial abundance in the transplanted permafrost, driven by the increase in copiotrophic prokaryotic taxa (e.g. Noviherbaspirillum and Massilia) ... : Science of The Total Environment, 807 ...