Litter microbial respiration and enzymatic resistance to drought stress

Devan M. Nisson,Steven D. Allison

doi:10.1525/elementa.442

Devan M. Nisson, Steven D. Allison

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.442

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Abstract

Many ecosystems are experiencing an increase in drought conditions as a consequence of climate warming and changing precipitation patterns. The stress imposed by these environmental changes can affect ecosystem processes such as the extracellular enzymatic degradation of carbon-containing leaf litter by soil microbial communities. However, the magnitude of these impacts may depend on the composition and metabolism of the microbial community. Based on the hypothesis of local adaptation, microbial communities native to warm-dry ecosystems should display a greater capacity to degrade leaf litter polymers with extracellular enzymes following exposure to warm-dry conditions. To test this hypothesis, we performed a microcosm study in which we monitored extracellular enzyme activity and respiration of microbial communities from five ecosystems along a southern California climate gradient, ranging from warmer, drier desert to wetter, cooler subalpine forest. To simulate drought and rewetting, we subjected microcosms to periods of high temperature and low moisture followed by a water pulse. We found that enzyme activity of wet-cool communities generally exceeded that of warm-dry communities across enzyme types for the five sites we considered. Additionally, we observed a significant decrease in respiration for all communities after longer durations of drought exposure. Although these findings did not align with our expectations of local adaptation, they suggest litter-inhabiting microbial communities are able to retain metabolic functioning in environmental conditions different from those of their native ecosystems. These results may imply that factors such as litter chemistry impose greater constraints than climate on community metabolic function. Overall, despite differences in local climates, microbial communities from semiarid regions may be metabolically adapted to maintain functioning in the face of drought.

Highlights

Ecosystems across the globe face the imminent threat of increasingly warm conditions as a consequence of climate change (Diffenbaugh et al, 2015; Mann and Gleick, 2015)
Extracellular enzyme activity We found a significant effect of community type on initial activity for each of the seven enzymes (p < 0.05; Figure 1)
Extracellular enzyme activity increased from the warm-dry communities to the wet- cool ones except for Acid phosphatase (AP), for which the scrubland displayed the greatest activity, and NAG, for which the subalpine displayed the lowest activity (Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

Ecosystems across the globe face the imminent threat of increasingly warm conditions as a consequence of climate change (Diffenbaugh et al, 2015; Mann and Gleick, 2015). In southern California over the past two decades, moderately low annual precipitation events co-occurred more frequently with high temperature years, leading to an increase in warmer, drier soil conditions (NNDC, 2014). Over this same time frame, the occurrence of moderate drought events has doubled, meaning that co-occurring increased annual temperature and lower annual precipitation events contribute to longer and more frequent statewide episodes of soil moisture deficiency (Diffenbaugh et al, 2015; Cook et al, 2015). Climate models predict changes in annual precipitation regimes, with more intense rainfall occurring over shorter time periods (Swain et al, 2018). Increased aridity and precipitation shifts disrupt ecosystem processes in semiarid regions like southern California, but they affect the underlying soil microbiology of these systems

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