A positive soil carbon (C)\uffe2\uff80\uff90climate feedback is embedded into the climatic models of the IPCC. However, recent global syntheses indicate that the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration (RS) in drylands, the largest biome on Earth, is actually lower in warmed than in control plots. Consequently, soil C losses with future warming are expected to be low compared with other biomes. Nevertheless, the empirical basis for these global extrapolations is still poor in drylands, due to the low number of field experiments testing the pathways behind the long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term responses of soil respiration (RS) to warming. Importantly, global drylands are covered with biocrusts (communities formed by bryophytes, lichens, cyanobacteria, fungi, and bacteria), and thus,RSresponses to warming may be driven by both autotrophic and heterotrophic pathways. Here, we evaluated the effects of 8\uffe2\uff80\uff90year experimental warming onRS, and the different pathways involved, in a biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90dominated dryland in southern Spain. We also assessed the overall impacts on soil organic C (SOC) accumulation over time. Across the years and biocrust cover levels, warming reducedRSby 0.30\uffc2\uffa0\uffce\uffbcmol\uffc2\uffa0CO2\uffc2\uffa0m\uffe2\uff88\uff922\uffc2\uffa0s\uffe2\uff88\uff921(95% CI\uffc2\uffa0=\uffc2\uffa0\uffe2\uff88\uff920.24 to 0.84), although the negative warming effects were only significant after 3\uffc2\uffa0years of elevated temperatures in areas with low initial biocrust cover. We found support for different pathways regulating the warming\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced reduction inRSat areas with low (microbial thermal acclimation via reduced soil mass\uffe2\uff80\uff90specific respiration and \uffce\uffb2\uffe2\uff80\uff90glucosidase enzymatic activity) vs. high (microbial thermal acclimation jointly with a reduction in autotrophic respiration from decreased lichen cover) initial biocrust cover. Our 8\uffe2\uff80\uff90year experimental study shows a reduction in soil respiration with warming and highlights that biocrusts should be explicitly included in modeling efforts aimed to quantify the soil C\uffe2\uff80\uff93climate feedback in drylands.Many experiments that measure the response of microbial communities to heavy metals increase metal concentrations abruptly in the soil. However, it is unclear whether abrupt additions mimic the gradual and often long-term accumulation of these metals in the environment where microbial populations may adapt. In a greenhouse experiment that lasted 26 months, we tested whether bacterial communities and soil respiration differed between soils that received an abrupt or a gradual addition of copper or no copper at all. Bacterial richness and other diversity indices were consistently lower in the abrupt treatment compared to the ambient treatment that received no copper. The abrupt addition of copper yielded different initial bacterial communities than the gradual addition; however, these communities appeared to converge once copper concentrations were approximately equal. Soil respiration in the abrupt treatment was initially suppressed but recovered after four months. Afterwards, respiration in both the gradual and abrupt treatments wavered between being below or equal to the ambient treatment. Overall, our study indicates that gradual and abrupt additions of copper can yield similar bacterial communities and respiration, but these responses may drastically vary until copper concentrations are equal.
", "keywords": ["2. Zero hunger", "0301 basic medicine", "0303 health sciences", "Bacteria", "Microbiota", "Bacterial Physiological Phenomena", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "13. Climate action", "Metals", " Heavy", "Soil Pollutants", "Copper", "Ecosystem", "Soil Microbiology"]}, "links": [{"href": "http://academic.oup.com/femsec/article-pdf/95/1/fiy212/29189709/fiy212.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiy212"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/FEMS%20Microbiology%20Ecology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1093/femsec/fiy212", "name": "item", "description": "10.1093/femsec/fiy212", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1093/femsec/fiy212"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2018-10-23T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1101/117887", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-23T16:18:17Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2017-03-19", "title": "Bacterial physiological adaptations to contrasting edaphic conditions identified using landscape scale metagenomics", "description": "AbstractEnvironmental factors relating to soil pH are widely known to be important in structuring soil bacterial communities, yet the relationship between taxonomic community composition and functional diversity remains to be determined. Here, we analyze geographically distributed soils spanning a wide pH gradient and assess the functional gene capacity within those communities using whole genome metagenomics. Low pH soils consistently had fewer taxa (lower alpha and gamma diversity), but only marginal reductions in functional alpha diversity and equivalent functional gamma diversity. However, coherent changes in the relative abundances of annotated genes between pH classes were identified; with functional profiles clustering according to pH independent of geography. Differences in gene abundances were found to reflect survival and nutrient acquisition strategies, with organic-rich acidic soils harboring a greater abundance of cation efflux pumps, C and N direct fixation systems and fermentation pathways indicative of anaerobiosis. Conversely, high pH soils possessed more direct transporter-mediated mechanisms for organic C and N substrate acquisition. These findings show that bacterial functional versatility may not be constrained by taxonomy, and we further identify the range of physiological adaptations required to exist in soils of varying nutrient availability and edaphic conditions.The role of climatic legacies in regulating community assembly of above\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and belowground species in terrestrial ecosystems remains largely unexplored and poorly understood. Here, we report on two separate regional and continental empirical studies, including >500 locations, aiming to identify the relative importance of climatic legacies (climatic anomaly over the last 20,000\uffc2\uffa0years) compared to current climates in predicting the relative abundance of ecological clusters formed by species strongly co\uffe2\uff80\uff90occurring within two independent above\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and belowground networks. Climatic legacies explained a significant portion of the variation in the current community assembly of terrestrial ecosystems (up to 15.4%) that could not be accounted for by current climate, soil properties, and management. Changes in the relative abundance of ecological clusters linked to climatic legacies (e.g., past temperature) showed the potential to indirectly alter other clusters, suggesting cascading effects. Our work illustrates the role of climatic legacies in regulating ecosystem community assembly and provides further insights into possible winner and loser community assemblies under global change scenarios.Despite their importance, how plant communities and soil microorganisms interact to determine the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) under climate change is poorly known. We conducted a common garden experiment using grassland species to evaluate how plant functional structure and soil microbial (bacteria and protists) diversity and abundance regulate soil multifunctionality responses to joint changes in plant species richness (one, three and six species) and simulated climate change (3\uffc2\uffb0C warming and 35% rainfall reduction). The effects of species richness and climate on soil multifunctionality were indirectly driven via changes in plant functional structure and their relationships with the abundance and diversity of soil bacteria and protists. More specifically, warming selected for the larger and most productive plant species, increasing the average size within communities and leading to reductions in functional plant diversity. These changes increased the total abundance of bacteria that, in turn, increased that of protists, ultimately promoting soil multifunctionality. Our work suggests that cascading effects between plant functional traits and the abundance of multitrophic soil organisms largely regulate the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated climate change, and ultimately provides novel experimental insights into the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity and climate change on ecosystem functioning.Environmental factors relating to soil pH are widely known to be important in structuring soil bacterial communities, yet the relationship between taxonomic community composition and functional diversity remains to be determined. Here, we analyze geographically distributed soils spanning a wide pH gradient and assess the functional gene capacity within those communities using whole genome metagenomics. Low pH soils consistently had fewer taxa (lower alpha and gamma diversity), but only marginal reductions in functional alpha diversity and equivalent functional gamma diversity. However, coherent changes in the relative abundances of annotated genes between pH classes were identified; with functional profiles clustering according to pH independent of geography. Differences in gene abundances were found to reflect survival and nutrient acquisition strategies, with organic-rich acidic soils harboring a greater abundance of cation efflux pumps, C and N direct fixation systems and fermentation pathways indicative of anaerobiosis. Conversely, high pH soils possessed more direct transporter-mediated mechanisms for organic C and N substrate acquisition. These findings show that bacterial functional versatility may not be constrained by taxonomy, and we further identify the range of physiological adaptations required to exist in soils of varying nutrient availability and edaphic conditions.
", "keywords": ["Q Science", "0301 basic medicine", "330", "Supplementary Data", "ecophysiology", "Ecophysiology", "NE/E006353/1", "Bacterial Physiological Phenomena", "Microbiology", "Soil", "03 medical and health sciences", "Virology", "European Commission", "Ecosystem", "Phylogeny", "Soil Microbiology", "2. Zero hunger", "655240", "metagenomics", "0303 health sciences", "Bacteria", "Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)", "Q", "NE/M017125/1", "Biodiversity", "Hydrogen-Ion Concentration", "15. Life on land", "Adaptation", " Physiological", "soil microbiology", "QR1-502", "United Kingdom", "3. Good health", "Soil microbiology", "Metagenomics", "Genome", " Bacterial", "Research Article"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/117887v1.full.pdf"}, {"href": "https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/mBio.00799-17"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00799-17"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/mBio", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1128/mBio.00799-17", "name": "item", "description": "10.1128/mBio.00799-17", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1128/mBio.00799-17"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2017-03-18T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "1959.7/uws:64079", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-23T16:24:53Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2018-05-11", "title": "Effects of climate legacies on above\u2010 and belowground community assembly", "description": "AbstractThe role of climatic legacies in regulating community assembly of above\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and belowground species in terrestrial ecosystems remains largely unexplored and poorly understood. Here, we report on two separate regional and continental empirical studies, including >500 locations, aiming to identify the relative importance of climatic legacies (climatic anomaly over the last 20,000\uffc2\uffa0years) compared to current climates in predicting the relative abundance of ecological clusters formed by species strongly co\uffe2\uff80\uff90occurring within two independent above\uffe2\uff80\uff90 and belowground networks. Climatic legacies explained a significant portion of the variation in the current community assembly of terrestrial ecosystems (up to 15.4%) that could not be accounted for by current climate, soil properties, and management. Changes in the relative abundance of ecological clusters linked to climatic legacies (e.g., past temperature) showed the potential to indirectly alter other clusters, suggesting cascading effects. Our work illustrates the role of climatic legacies in regulating ecosystem community assembly and provides further insights into possible winner and loser community assemblies under global change scenarios.A positive soil carbon (C)\uffe2\uff80\uff90climate feedback is embedded into the climatic models of the IPCC. However, recent global syntheses indicate that the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration (RS) in drylands, the largest biome on Earth, is actually lower in warmed than in control plots. Consequently, soil C losses with future warming are expected to be low compared with other biomes. Nevertheless, the empirical basis for these global extrapolations is still poor in drylands, due to the low number of field experiments testing the pathways behind the long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term responses of soil respiration (RS) to warming. Importantly, global drylands are covered with biocrusts (communities formed by bryophytes, lichens, cyanobacteria, fungi, and bacteria), and thus,RSresponses to warming may be driven by both autotrophic and heterotrophic pathways. Here, we evaluated the effects of 8\uffe2\uff80\uff90year experimental warming onRS, and the different pathways involved, in a biocrust\uffe2\uff80\uff90dominated dryland in southern Spain. We also assessed the overall impacts on soil organic C (SOC) accumulation over time. Across the years and biocrust cover levels, warming reducedRSby 0.30\uffc2\uffa0\uffce\uffbcmol\uffc2\uffa0CO2\uffc2\uffa0m\uffe2\uff88\uff922\uffc2\uffa0s\uffe2\uff88\uff921(95% CI\uffc2\uffa0=\uffc2\uffa0\uffe2\uff88\uff920.24 to 0.84), although the negative warming effects were only significant after 3\uffc2\uffa0years of elevated temperatures in areas with low initial biocrust cover. We found support for different pathways regulating the warming\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced reduction inRSat areas with low (microbial thermal acclimation via reduced soil mass\uffe2\uff80\uff90specific respiration and \uffce\uffb2\uffe2\uff80\uff90glucosidase enzymatic activity) vs. high (microbial thermal acclimation jointly with a reduction in autotrophic respiration from decreased lichen cover) initial biocrust cover. Our 8\uffe2\uff80\uff90year experimental study shows a reduction in soil respiration with warming and highlights that biocrusts should be explicitly included in modeling efforts aimed to quantify the soil C\uffe2\uff80\uff93climate feedback in drylands.Despite their importance, how plant communities and soil microorganisms interact to determine the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) under climate change is poorly known. We conducted a common garden experiment using grassland species to evaluate how plant functional structure and soil microbial (bacteria and protists) diversity and abundance regulate soil multifunctionality responses to joint changes in plant species richness (one, three and six species) and simulated climate change (3\uffc2\uffb0C warming and 35% rainfall reduction). The effects of species richness and climate on soil multifunctionality were indirectly driven via changes in plant functional structure and their relationships with the abundance and diversity of soil bacteria and protists. More specifically, warming selected for the larger and most productive plant species, increasing the average size within communities and leading to reductions in functional plant diversity. These changes increased the total abundance of bacteria that, in turn, increased that of protists, ultimately promoting soil multifunctionality. Our work suggests that cascading effects between plant functional traits and the abundance of multitrophic soil organisms largely regulate the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated climate change, and ultimately provides novel experimental insights into the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity and climate change on ecosystem functioning.Environmental factors relating to soil pH are widely known to be important in structuring soil bacterial communities, yet the relationship between taxonomic community composition and functional diversity remains to be determined. Here, we analyze geographically distributed soils spanning a wide pH gradient and assess the functional gene capacity within those communities using whole genome metagenomics. Low pH soils consistently had fewer taxa (lower alpha and gamma diversity), but only marginal reductions in functional alpha diversity and equivalent functional gamma diversity. However, coherent changes in the relative abundances of annotated genes between pH classes were identified; with functional profiles clustering according to pH independent of geography. Differences in gene abundances were found to reflect survival and nutrient acquisition strategies, with organic-rich acidic soils harboring a greater abundance of cation efflux pumps, C and N direct fixation systems and fermentation pathways indicative of anaerobiosis. Conversely, high pH soils possessed more direct transporter-mediated mechanisms for organic C and N substrate acquisition. These findings show that bacterial functional versatility may not be constrained by taxonomy, and we further identify the range of physiological adaptations required to exist in soils of varying nutrient availability and edaphic conditions.Despite their importance, how plant communities and soil microorganisms interact to determine the capacity of ecosystems to provide multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) under climate change is poorly known. We conducted a common garden experiment using grassland species to evaluate how plant functional structure and soil microbial (bacteria and protists) diversity and abundance regulate soil multifunctionality responses to joint changes in plant species richness (one, three and six species) and simulated climate change (3\uffc2\uffb0C warming and 35% rainfall reduction). The effects of species richness and climate on soil multifunctionality were indirectly driven via changes in plant functional structure and their relationships with the abundance and diversity of soil bacteria and protists. More specifically, warming selected for the larger and most productive plant species, increasing the average size within communities and leading to reductions in functional plant diversity. These changes increased the total abundance of bacteria that, in turn, increased that of protists, ultimately promoting soil multifunctionality. Our work suggests that cascading effects between plant functional traits and the abundance of multitrophic soil organisms largely regulate the response of soil multifunctionality to simulated climate change, and ultimately provides novel experimental insights into the mechanisms underlying the effects of biodiversity and climate change on ecosystem functioning.