Low-salinity transitions drive abrupt microbial response to sea-level change

• Published in: Ecology Letters
• Main Authors: Whittle, A, Barnett, RL, Charman, DJ, Gallego-Sala, AV
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley / Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 2021
• Subjects: biomass; climate change; coastal ecology; microbial; productivity; salinity; sea level; testate amoebae; Antarc*; Antarctic; British Antarctic Survey
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/127816; https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13893

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this record Data availability statement: Authors have data permissions for all data used in this study. Data deriving from published sources are referenced in the manuscript. The datasets used in this study are available from the British Antarctic Survey Polar Data Centre, and the figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16573346.v1). The salinisation of many coastal ecosystems is underway and is expected to continue into the future because of sea-level rise and storm intensification brought about by the changing climate. However, the response of soil microbes to increasing salinity conditions within coastal environments is poorly understood, despite their importance for nutrient cascading, carbon sequestration and wider ecosystem functioning. Here, we demonstrate deterioration in the productivity of a top-tier microbial group (testate amoebae) with increasing coastal salinity, which we show to be consistent across phylogenetic groups, salinity gradients, environment types and latitude. Our results show that microbial changes occur in the very early stages of marine inundation, presaging more radical changes in soil and ecosystem function and providing an early warning of coastal salinisation that could be used to improve coastal planning and adaptation. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Sécurité publique du Québec University of Exeter