Elevated atmospheric CO{sub 2} alters root-microbe interactions and belowground trophic structure
- San Diego State Univ., CA (United States)
Various aspects of plant and ecosystem responses to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide have been described. However, very little is known about the fate of carbon allocated belowground, microbial activity, and trophic structure in the rhizosphere. Rhizosphere microbes are fed primarily by root-derived substrates, fulfill functions such as mineralization, immobilization, decomposition, pathogeneity, and improvement of plant nutrition, and form the base of the below-ground food web. Belowground processes have so far been monitored using a black-box approach, thereby ignoring effects of global change at a finer (functional group) level of resolution. This study is the first to describe shifts in the activity and dominance between microbial functional groups, and the results of this on higher trophic levels. We observed that, in a nutrient-rich soil, carbon flow in the plant-soil system was shunted from a mutualistic-closed, mycorrhizal dominated flow to an opportunist-open, saprobe/pathogen dominated one. This indicates that elevated atmospheric CO{sub 2} may lead to far less predictable consequences than previously thought.
- OSTI ID:
- 107114
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9507129-; ISSN 0012-9623; TRN: 95:006512-0030
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, Vol. 76, Issue 3; Conference: 80. anniversary of the transdisciplinary nature of ecology, Snowbird, UT (United States), 30 Jul - 3 Aug 1995; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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