Ongoing global warming is expected to augment soil respiration by increasing the microbial activity, driving self-reinforcing feedback to climate change. However, the compensatory thermal adaptation of soil microorganisms and substrate depletion may weaken the effects of rising temperature on soil respiration. To test this hypothesis, we collected soils along a large-scale forest transect in eastern China spanning a natural temperature gradient, and we incubated the soils at different temperatures with or without substrate addition. We combined the exponential thermal response function and a data-driven model to study the interaction effect of thermal adaptation and substrate availability on microbial respiration and compared our results to those from two additional continental and global independent datasets. Modeled results suggested that the effect of thermal adaptation on microbial respiration was greater in areas with higher mean annual temperatures, which is consistent with the compensatory response to warming. In addition, the effect of thermal adaptation on microbial respiration was greater under substrate addition than under substrate depletion, which was also true for the independent datasets reanalyzed using our approach. Our results indicate that thermal adaptation in warmer regions could exert a more pronounced negative impact on microbial respiration when the substrate availability is abundant. These findings improve the body of knowledge on how substrate availability influences the soil microbial community\uffe2\uff80\uff93temperature interactions, which could improve estimates of projected soil carbon losses to the atmosphere through respiration.Thermal adaptations of soil microorganisms could mitigate or facilitate global warming effects on soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition and soil CO2 efflux. We incubated soil from warmed and control subplots of a forest soil warming experiment to assess whether 9\uffc2\uffa0years of soil warming affected the rates and the temperature sensitivity of the soil CO2 efflux, extracellular enzyme activities, microbial efficiency, and gross N mineralization. Mineral soil (0\uffe2\uff80\uff9310\uffc2\uffa0cm depth) was incubated at temperatures ranging from 3 to 23\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb0C. No adaptations to long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term warming were observed regarding the heterotrophic soil CO2 efflux (R10 warmed: 2.31\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.15\uffc2\uffa0\uffce\uffbcmol\uffc2\uffa0m\uffe2\uff88\uff922\uffc2\uffa0s\uffe2\uff88\uff921, control: 2.34\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.29\uffc2\uffa0\uffce\uffbcmol\uffc2\uffa0m\uffe2\uff88\uff922\uffc2\uffa0s\uffe2\uff88\uff921; Q10 warmed: 2.45\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.06, control: 2.45\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.04). Potential enzyme activities increased with incubation temperature, but the temperature sensitivity of the enzymes did not differ between the warmed and the control soils. The ratio of C\uffc2\uffa0:\uffc2\uffa0N acquiring enzyme activities was significantly higher in the warmed soil. Microbial biomass\uffe2\uff80\uff90specific respiration rates increased with incubation temperature, but the rates and the temperature sensitivity (Q10 warmed: 2.54\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.23, control 2.75\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.17) did not differ between warmed and control soils. Microbial substrate use efficiency (SUE) declined with increasing incubation temperature in both, warmed and control, soils. SUE and its temperature sensitivity (Q10 warmed: 0.84\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.03, control: 0.88\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.01) did not differ between warmed and control soils either. Gross N mineralization was invariant to incubation temperature and was not affected by long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term soil warming. Our results indicate that thermal adaptations of the microbial decomposer community are unlikely to occur in C\uffe2\uff80\uff90rich calcareous temperate forest soils.
", "keywords": ["0106 biological sciences", "570", "substrate use efficiency", "Nitrogen", "ARCTIC SOIL", "Acclimatization", "Forests", "soil CO2 efflux", "Global Warming", "01 natural sciences", "630", "COMMUNITY COMPOSITION", "BOREAL FOREST", "Soil", "gross N mineralization", "SEASONAL PATTERNS", "thermal adaptation", "EXTRACELLULAR ENZYMES", "CARBON-USE EFFICIENCY", "soil warming", "Enzyme activities", "BEECH FOREST", "ENZYME-ACTIVITY", "Soil Microbiology", "2. Zero hunger", "106022 Mikrobiologie", "Soil CO efflux", "NITROGEN AVAILABILITY", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "Carbon Dioxide", "15. Life on land", "Primary Research Articles", "Thermal adaptation", "enzyme activities", "13. Climate action", "Austria", "106022 Microbiology", "Soil warming", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "CYCLE FEEDBACKS", "Gross N mineralization", "Seasons", "Substrate use efficiency"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12996"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/gcb.12996", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/gcb.12996", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/gcb.12996"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2015-09-28T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10045/140784", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-07-25T16:24:35Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2024-02-12", "title": "Stronger compensatory thermal adaptation of soil microbial respiration with higher substrate availability", "description": "AbstractOngoing global warming is expected to augment soil respiration by increasing the microbial activity, driving self-reinforcing feedback to climate change. However, the compensatory thermal adaptation of soil microorganisms and substrate depletion may weaken the effects of rising temperature on soil respiration. To test this hypothesis, we collected soils along a large-scale forest transect in eastern China spanning a natural temperature gradient, and we incubated the soils at different temperatures with or without substrate addition. We combined the exponential thermal response function and a data-driven model to study the interaction effect of thermal adaptation and substrate availability on microbial respiration and compared our results to those from two additional continental and global independent datasets. Modeled results suggested that the effect of thermal adaptation on microbial respiration was greater in areas with higher mean annual temperatures, which is consistent with the compensatory response to warming. In addition, the effect of thermal adaptation on microbial respiration was greater under substrate addition than under substrate depletion, which was also true for the independent datasets reanalyzed using our approach. Our results indicate that thermal adaptation in warmer regions could exert a more pronounced negative impact on microbial respiration when the substrate availability is abundant. These findings improve the body of knowledge on how substrate availability influences the soil microbial community\uffe2\uff80\uff93temperature interactions, which could improve estimates of projected soil carbon losses to the atmosphere through respiration.