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Abstract
Even though it is widely acknowledged that litter decomposition can be impacted by climate change, the functional roles of microbes involved in the decomposition and their answer to climate change are less understood. This study used a field experimental facility settled in Central Germany to analyze the effects of ambient vs. future climate that is expected in 50–80 years on mass loss and physicochemical parameters of wheat litter in agricultural cropland at the early phase of litter decomposition process. Additionally, the effects of climate change were assessed on microbial richness, community compositions, interactions, and their functions (production of extracellular enzymes), as well as litter physicochemical factors shaping their colonization. The initial physicochemical properties of wheat litter did not change between both climate conditions; however, future climate significantly accelerated litter mass loss as compared with ambient one. Using MiSeq Illumina sequencing, we found that future climate significantly increased fungal richness and altered fungal communities over time, while bacterial communities were more resistant in wheat residues. Changes on fungal richness and/or community composition corresponded to different physicochemical factors of litter under ambient (Ca2+, and pH) and future (C/N, N, P, K+, Ca2+, pH, and moisture) climate conditions. Moreover, highly correlative interactions between richness of bacteria and fungi were detected under future climate. Furthermore, the co-occurrence networks patterns among dominant microorganisms inhabiting wheat residues were strongly distinct between future and ambient climates. Activities of microbial β-glucosidase and N-acetylglucosaminidase in wheat litter were increased over time. Such increased enzymatic activities were coupled with a significant positive correlation between microbial (both bacteria and fungi) richness and community compositions with these two enzymatic activities only under future climate. Overall, we provide evidence that future climate significantly impacted the early phase of wheat litter decomposition through direct effects on fungal communities and through indirect effects on microbial interactions as well as corresponding enzyme production.
Highlights
Wheat litter incorporation into the soil is a well-established sustainable practice in modern agricultural systems [1]
Bacterial communities under both ambient and future climate conditions were dominated by Proteobacteria (85–86% of the total bacterial sequences reads), which were mostly assigned to Gammaproteobacteria (95–96%) and Alphaproteobacteria (4–5%), and Actinobacteria (11–13% of the total bacterial sequences, with 89–92% assigned to Micrococcales)
Fungal communities were dominated by Ascomycota (98.3% of total fungal sequences reads), while Basidiomycota was rare (1.7% of all fungal sequences) at the early phase of wheat litter decomposition
Summary
Wheat litter incorporation into the soil is a well-established sustainable practice in modern agricultural systems [1]. Decomposition of wheat residues supports plant productivity by increasing soil organic matter and other nutrients [2]. The dynamics of the plant litter decomposition process is triggered and regulated by several factors such as litter quality, abundances, and activities of soil decomposers, especially saprotrophs. All of these factors are governed by climatic conditions [3,4,5,6]. Wheat litter consists of cellulose (28–39%), hemicelluloses (23–24%), lignin (16–25%), and few contents of ashes and proteins [7].
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