B31K-01:
Metagenomics-Enabled Understanding of Soil Microbial Feedbacks to Climate Warming
Wednesday, 17 December 2014: 8:00 AM
Jizhong Zhou1, Liyou Wu1, He Zhili1, Konstantinidis Kostas2, Yiqi Luo3, Edward A G Schuur4, James R Cole5 and James M Tiedje5, (1)University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman, OK, United States, (2)Georgia Institute of Technology Main Campus - GT, Atlanta, GA, United States, (3)Univ Oklahoma, Norman, OK, United States, (4)Univ Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States, (5)Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States
Abstract:
Understanding the response of biological communities to climate warming is a central issue in ecology and global change biology, but it is poorly understood microbial communities. To advance system-level predictive understanding of the feedbacks of belowground microbial communities to multiple climate change factors and their impacts on soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling processes, we have used integrated metagenomic technologies (e.g., target gene and shotgun metagenome sequencing, GeoChip, and isotope) to analyze soil microbial communities from experimental warming sites in Alaska (AK) and Oklahoma (OK), and long-term laboratory incubation. Rapid feedbacks of microbial communities to warming were observed in the AK site. Consistent with the changes in soil temperature, moisture and ecosystem respiration, microbial functional community structure was shifted after only 1.5-year warming, indicating rapid responses and high sensitivity of this permafrost ecosystem to climate warming. Also, warming stimulated not only functional genes involved in aerobic respiration of both labile and recalcitrant C, contributing to an observed 24% increase in 2010 growing season and 56% increase of decomposition of a standard substrate, but also functional genes for anaerobic processes (e.g., denitrification, sulfate reduction, methanogenesis). Further comparisons by shotgun sequencing showed significant differences of microbial community structure between AK and OK sites. The OK site was enriched in genes annotated for cellulose degradation, CO2 production, denitrification, sporulation, heat shock response, and cellular surface structures (e.g., trans-membrane transporters for glucosides), while the AK warmed plots were enriched in metabolic pathways related to labile C decomposition. Together, our results demonstrate the vulnerability of permafrost ecosystem C to climate warming and the importance of microbial feedbacks in mediating such vulnerability.
