Microbial responses to southward and northward Cambisol soil transplant.

Mengmeng Wang,Yunfeng Yang,Jizhong Zhou,Shanshan Liu,Feng Wang,Bo Sun

doi:10.1002/mbo3.302

Abstract

Soil transplant serves as a proxy to simulate climate changes. Recently, we have shown that southward transplant of black soil and northward transplant of red soil altered soil microbial communities and biogeochemical variables. However, fundamental differences in soil types have prevented direct comparison between southward and northward transplants. To tackle it, herein we report an analysis of microbial communities of Cambisol soil in an agriculture field after 4years of adaptation to southward and northward soil transplants over large transects. Analysis of bare fallow soils revealed concurrent increase in microbial functional diversity and coarse-scale taxonomic diversity at both transplanted sites, as detected by GeoChip 3.0 and DGGE, respectively. Furthermore, a correlation between microbial functional diversity and taxonomic diversity was detected, which was masked in maize cropped soils. Mean annual temperature, soil moisture, and nitrate (NO3 ¯-N) showed strong correlations with microbial communities. In addition, abundances of ammonium-oxidizing genes (amoA) and denitrification genes were correlated with nitrification capacity and NO3 ¯-N contents, suggesting that microbial responses to soil transplant could alter microbe-mediated biogeochemical cycle at the ecosystem level.

Highlights

Extreme climate change events, such as abrupt warming or cooling, are occurring with elevated frequency and/or intensity (Alley et al 2003; Rahmstorf and Coumou 2011), which impose substantial impacts on terrestrial ecosystems
We found that soil transplant and maize cropping had interactive effects on microbial communities
We examined soil transplant by focusing on bare fallow soils, which was common in agricultural fields

Summary

Introduction

Extreme climate change events, such as abrupt warming or cooling, are occurring with elevated frequency and/or intensity (Alley et al 2003; Rahmstorf and Coumou 2011), which impose substantial impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. Soil transplant, which exposes soil to realistic climate regimes at different places, has recently been established as an experimental strategy to simulate climate changes (Balser and Firestone 2005; Breeuwer et al 2010; De Frenne et al 2011; Lazzaro et al 2011; Vanhala et al 2011) Using this strategy, we have recently shown that both southward transplant of black soil (typical of cold temperate climate zone) and northward transplant of red soil (typical of subtropical and tropical climate zone) altered microbial community structure and soil biogeochemical cycles (Zhao et al 2014a; Liu et al 2015). It remains unclear how microbial communities respond to soil transplant toward converse perturbation

Methods

Results

Conclusion