Impact of atmospheric CO 2 and plant life forms on soil microbial activities

Abstract

From the global change perspective, increase of atmospheric CO 2 and land cover transformation are among the major impacts caused by human activities. In this study, we are addressing the combined issues of the effect of CO 2 concentration increase and plant type on soil microbial activities by asking how annual and perennial plant groups affect soil microbial processes under elevated CO 2. The experimental design used a mix of species of different growth forms for both annuals and perennials. Our objective was: (1) to determine how two years of annual or perennial plant cover and CO 2 enrichment could affect Mediterranean soil microbial processes; (2) to test the resistance and the resilience of these soil functional processes after a natural perturbation. We determined the effects of 2 years atmospheric CO 2 enrichment on soil potential respiration (SIR), denitrification (DEA) and nitrification (NEA) activities. We could not find any significant effect of CO 2 increase on SIR, DEA and NEA. However, we found a strong effect of the plant cover type, i.e. annuals versus perennials, on the potential microbial activity related to N cycling. DEA and NEA were significantly higher in soil under annual plants while SIR was not significantly different. To determine whether these changes would survive a natural perturbation, we carried out a rain event experiment once the experimental treatments (i.e. different plant cover and atmospheric CO 2 concentration) were stopped. The soil potential respiration, as expressed by the SIR, was not affected and remained stable. DEA rates converged rapidly under annuals and perennials after the rain event. Under both annuals and perennials NEA increased significantly after the rain event but remained significantly higher in the soil with annual plants. The relative change of the soil microbial processes induced by annual and perennial plants was inversely related to the density and the diversity of the corresponding microbial functional groups.