4.6 Article

Consistent responses of microbial C and N metabolic processes to elevated CO2 across global terrestrial ecosystems

Journal

JOURNAL OF SOILS AND SEDIMENTS
Volume 22, Issue 2, Pages 403-408

Publisher

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s11368-021-03122-7

Keywords

Elevated CO2; CO2 emissions; N2O emissions; Microbial biomass; Anabolic; Catabolic

Funding

  1. National Natural Science Foundation of China [41807033]
  2. Serving Local Economic Development Project of Shandong (Linyi) Institute of Modern Agriculture, Zhejiang University [ZDNY-2020-FWLY01006]
  3. Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST [2018QNRC001]
  4. Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China

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The study found that elevated CO2 has significant impacts on microbial C and N metabolic processes in soil, affecting soil C and N concentrations. It was also observed that elevated CO2 leads to increased CO2 and N2O emissions, as well as changes in microbial biomass and soil pH and moisture content.
Purpose Elevated CO2 contributes greatly to global warming, playing a pivotal role in terrestrial ecosystem processes, in particular microbially regulated C and N cycling. However, the responses of microbial C and N anabolic and metabolic processes to elevated CO2 are unclear. Methods This study used a meta-analysis based on a global dataset (i.e., 312 observations from 66 studies) to calculate the effect size (i.e., natural log response ratio) of soil microbial C and N metabolic processes and relevant soil C and N concentrations under elevated CO2. Results Results showed that elevated CO2 increased soil total C concentrations by 5.3% and total N concentrations by 4.8%, and decreased soil dissolved organic N and NO3- concentrations by 4.4% and 9.4%, respectively, but did not affect dissolved organic C or C:N ratios across global terrestrial ecosystems. Elevated CO2 significantly increased soil CO2 emissions and microbial biomass C by 19.3% and 13.3%, respectively, indicating that elevated CO2 increased both microbial anabolic and catabolic processes in soil. Similarly, elevated CO2 significantly increased soil N2O emissions and microbial biomass N by 18.7% and 9.0%, respectively. Microbial C cycling processes were associated with microbial N cycling processes under elevated CO2. Specifically, CO2 and N2O emissions were highest in soils with moisture contents of 40-60% and 60-80%, respectively, and microbial biomass C was largest in soils with pH values of 6.5-7.5. Conclusion Our findings demonstrated the profound impacts of elevated CO2 on microbially regulated C and N metabolic processes and the close linkage between soil microbial C and N cycling under global warming.

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