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Title: Soil respiration and bacterial structure and function after 17 years of a reciprocal soil transplant experiment

Abstract

The effects of climate change on soil organic matter—its structure, microbial community, carbon storage, and respiration response—remain uncertain and widely debated. In addition, the effects of climate changes on ecosystem structure and function are often modulated or delayed, meaning that short-term experiments are not sufficient to characterize ecosystem responses. This study capitalized on a long-term reciprocal soil transplant experiment to examine the response of dryland soils to climate change. The two transplant sites were separated by 500 m of elevation on the same mountain slope in eastern Washington state, USA, and had similar plant species and soil types. We resampled the original 1994 soil transplants and controls, measuring CO2 production, temperature response, enzyme activity, and bacterial community structure after 17 years. Over a laboratory incubation of 100 days, reciprocally transplanted soils respired roughly equal cumulative amounts of carbon as non-transplanted controls from the same site. Soils transplanted from the hot, dry, lower site to the cooler and wetter (difference of -5 °C monthly maximum air temperature, +50 mm yr-1precipitation) upper site exhibited almost no respiratory response to temperature (Q10 of 1.1), but soils originally from the upper, cooler site had generally higher respiration rates. The bacterial community structure of transplantsmore » did not differ significantly from that of untransplanted controls, however. Slight differences in local climate between the upper and lower Rattlesnake locations, simulated with environmental control chambers during the incubation, thus prompted significant differences in microbial activity, with no observed change to bacterial structure. Lastly, these results support the idea that environmental shifts can influence soil C through metabolic changes, and suggest that microbial populations responsible for soil heterotrophic respiration may be constrained in surprising ways, even as shorter- and longer-term soil microbial dynamics may be significantly different under changing climate.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [2]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States). Joint Global Change Research Institute
  2. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  3. Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1254557
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-94916
Journal ID: ISSN 1932-6203; KP1702010
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-76RL01830
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
PLoS ONE
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 11; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher:
Public Library of Science
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; climate change; soil organic matter; physical geography; soil respiration; Q10 temperature coefficient; rattlesnakes; bacteria; carbon dioxide; community structure

Citation Formats

Bond-Lamberty, Benjamin, Bolton, Harvey, Fansler, Sarah J., Heredia-Langner, Alejandro, Liu, Chongxuan, McCue, Lee Ann, Smith, Jeff L., and Bailey, Vanessa L. Soil respiration and bacterial structure and function after 17 years of a reciprocal soil transplant experiment. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150599.
Bond-Lamberty, Benjamin, Bolton, Harvey, Fansler, Sarah J., Heredia-Langner, Alejandro, Liu, Chongxuan, McCue, Lee Ann, Smith, Jeff L., & Bailey, Vanessa L. Soil respiration and bacterial structure and function after 17 years of a reciprocal soil transplant experiment. United States. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150599
Bond-Lamberty, Benjamin, Bolton, Harvey, Fansler, Sarah J., Heredia-Langner, Alejandro, Liu, Chongxuan, McCue, Lee Ann, Smith, Jeff L., and Bailey, Vanessa L. Wed . "Soil respiration and bacterial structure and function after 17 years of a reciprocal soil transplant experiment". United States. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150599. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1254557.
@article{osti_1254557,
title = {Soil respiration and bacterial structure and function after 17 years of a reciprocal soil transplant experiment},
author = {Bond-Lamberty, Benjamin and Bolton, Harvey and Fansler, Sarah J. and Heredia-Langner, Alejandro and Liu, Chongxuan and McCue, Lee Ann and Smith, Jeff L. and Bailey, Vanessa L.},
abstractNote = {The effects of climate change on soil organic matter—its structure, microbial community, carbon storage, and respiration response—remain uncertain and widely debated. In addition, the effects of climate changes on ecosystem structure and function are often modulated or delayed, meaning that short-term experiments are not sufficient to characterize ecosystem responses. This study capitalized on a long-term reciprocal soil transplant experiment to examine the response of dryland soils to climate change. The two transplant sites were separated by 500 m of elevation on the same mountain slope in eastern Washington state, USA, and had similar plant species and soil types. We resampled the original 1994 soil transplants and controls, measuring CO2 production, temperature response, enzyme activity, and bacterial community structure after 17 years. Over a laboratory incubation of 100 days, reciprocally transplanted soils respired roughly equal cumulative amounts of carbon as non-transplanted controls from the same site. Soils transplanted from the hot, dry, lower site to the cooler and wetter (difference of -5 °C monthly maximum air temperature, +50 mm yr-1precipitation) upper site exhibited almost no respiratory response to temperature (Q10 of 1.1), but soils originally from the upper, cooler site had generally higher respiration rates. The bacterial community structure of transplants did not differ significantly from that of untransplanted controls, however. Slight differences in local climate between the upper and lower Rattlesnake locations, simulated with environmental control chambers during the incubation, thus prompted significant differences in microbial activity, with no observed change to bacterial structure. Lastly, these results support the idea that environmental shifts can influence soil C through metabolic changes, and suggest that microbial populations responsible for soil heterotrophic respiration may be constrained in surprising ways, even as shorter- and longer-term soil microbial dynamics may be significantly different under changing climate.},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0150599},
journal = {PLoS ONE},
number = 3,
volume = 11,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Wed Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}

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