Climate warming restructures seasonal dynamics of grassland soil microbial communities
Xue Guo,
Mengting Yuan,
Jiesi Lei,
Zhou Shi,
Xishu Zhou,
Jiabao Li,
Ye Deng,
Yunfeng Yang,
Liyou Wu,
Yiqi Luo,
James M. Tiedje,
Jizhong Zhou
Affiliations
Xue Guo
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment Tsinghua University Beijing China
Mengting Yuan
Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology University of Oklahoma Norman Oklahoma USA
Jiesi Lei
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment Tsinghua University Beijing China
Zhou Shi
Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology University of Oklahoma Norman Oklahoma USA
Xishu Zhou
Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology University of Oklahoma Norman Oklahoma USA
Jiabao Li
Key Laboratory of Environmental and Applied Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Environmental Microbiology, & Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology Chinese Academy of Sciences Chengdu China
Ye Deng
Key Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, Research Center for Eco‐Environmental Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing China
Yunfeng Yang
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment Tsinghua University Beijing China
Liyou Wu
Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology University of Oklahoma Norman Oklahoma USA
Yiqi Luo
Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Ecosystem Science and Society Northern Arizona University Flagstaff Arizona USA
James M. Tiedje
Center for Microbial Ecology Michigan State University East Lansing Michigan USA
Jizhong Zhou
Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology University of Oklahoma Norman Oklahoma USA
Abstract Soil microbial community's responses to climate warming alter the global carbon cycle. In temperate ecosystems, soil microbial communities function along seasonal cycles. However, little is known about how the responses of soil microbial communities to warming vary when the season changes. In this study, we investigated the seasonal dynamics of soil bacterial community under experimental warming in a temperate tall‐grass prairie ecosystem. Our results showed that warming significantly (p = 0.001) shifted community structure, such that the differences of microbial communities between warming and control plots increased nonlinearly (R2 = 0.578, p = 0.021) from spring to winter. Also, warming significantly (p < 0.050) increased microbial network complexity and robustness, especially during the colder seasons, despite large variations in network size and complexity in different seasons. In addition, the relative importance of stochastic processes in shaping the microbial community decreased by warming in fall and winter but not in spring and summer. Our study indicates that climate warming restructures the seasonal dynamics of soil microbial community in a temperate ecosystem. Such seasonality of microbial responses to warming may enlarge over time and could have significant impacts on the terrestrial carbon cycle.
