Impacts of projected climate warming and wetting on soil microbial communities in alpine grassland ecosystems of the Tibetan plateau

Jun Zeng, Ju-Pei Shen, Jun-Tao Wang, Hang-Wei Hu, Cui-Jing Zhang, Ren Bai, Li-Mei Zhang, Ji-Zheng He

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Climate change is projected to have impacts on precipitation and temperature regimes in drylands of high elevation regions, with especially large effects in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. However, there was limited information about how the projected climate change will impact on the soil microbial community and their activity in the region. Here, we present results from a study conducted across 72 soil samples from 24 different sites along a temperature and precipitation gradient (substituted by aridity index ranging from 0.079 to 0.89) of the Plateau, to assess how changes in aridity affect the abundance, community composition, and diversity of bacteria, ammonia-oxidizers, and denitrifers (nirK/S and nosZ genes-containing communities) as well as nitrogen (N) turnover enzyme activities. We found V-shaped or inverted V-shaped relationships between the aridity index (AI) and soil microbial parameters (gene abundance, community structures, microbial diversity, and N turnover enzyme activities) with a threshold at AI = 0.27. The increasing or decreasing rates of the microbial parameters were higher in areas with AI < 0.27 (alpine steppes) than in mesic areas with 0.27 < AI < 0.89 (alpine meadow and swamp meadow). The results indicated that the projected warming and wetting have a strong impact on soil microbial communities in the alpine steppes.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1009-1023
Number of pages15
JournalMicrobial Ecology
Volume75
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Impacts of projected climate warming and wetting on soil microbial communities in alpine grassland ecosystems of the Tibetan plateau'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this