Microbial diversity drives carbon use efficiency in a model soil

Item

Title
Microbial diversity drives carbon use efficiency in a model soil
Nature Communications
Creator
Luiz A. Domeignoz-Horta et al.
Grace Pold
Xiao-Jun Allen Liu
Serita D. Frey
Jerry M. Melillo
Kristen M. Deangelis
Subject
Microbiology
Soil carbon sequestration
Date
2020
doi
10.1038/s41467-020-17502-z
Abstract
Empirical evidence for the response of soil carbon cycling to the combined effects of warming, drought and diversity loss is scarce. Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) plays a central role in regulating the flow of carbon through soil, yet how biotic and abiotic factors interact to drive it remains unclear. Here, we combine distinct community inocula (a biotic factor) with different temperature and moisture conditions (abiotic factors) to manipulate microbial diversity and community structure within a model soil. While community composition and diversity are the strongest predictors of CUE, abiotic factors modulated the relationship between diversity and CUE, with CUE being positively correlated with bacterial diversity only under high moisture. Altogether these results indicate that the diversity × ecosystem-function relationship can be impaired under non-favorable conditions in soils, and that to understand changes in soil C cycling we need to account for the multiple facets of global changes.