Numerous field studies have found changes in soil respiration and microbial abundance under experimental warming. Yet, it is uncertain whether the magnitude of these responses remains consistent over the long-term. We performed a meta-analysis on 25 field experiments to examine how warming effects on soil respiration, microbial biomass, and soil microbial C respond to the duration of warming.For each parameter, we hypothesized that effect sizes of warming would diminish as the duration of warming increased. In support of our hypothesis, warming initially increased soil respiration, but the magnitude of this effect declined significantly as warming progressed as evidenced by the two longest studies in our meta-analysis. In fact, after 10 years of warming, soil respiration in warmed treatments was similar to controls. In contrast, warming effect sizes for fungal biomass, bacterial biomass, and soil microbial C did not respond significantly to the duration of warming. Microbial acclimation, community shifts, adaptation, or reductions in labile C may have ameliorated warming effects on soil respiration in the long-term. Accordingly, long-term soil C losses might be smaller than those suggested by short-term warming studies.

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Fungal community composition often shifts in response to warmer temperatures, which might influence decomposition of recalcitrant carbon (C). We hypothesized that evolutionary trade-offs would enable recalcitrant C-using taxa to respond more positively to warming than would labile C-using taxa. Accordingly, we performed a warming experiment in an Alaskan boreal forest and examined changes in the prevalence of fungal taxa. In a complementary field trial, we characterized the ability of fungal taxa to use labile C (glucose), intermediate C (hemicellulose or cellulose), or recalcitrant C (lignin). We also assigned taxa to functional groups (e.g., free-living filamentous fungi, ectomycorrhizal fungi, and yeasts) based on taxonomic identity. We found that response to warming varied most among taxa at the order level, compared to other taxonomic ranks. Among orders, ability to use lignin was significantly related to increases in prevalence in response to warming. However, the relationship was weak, given that lignin use explained only 9% of the variability in warming responses. Functional groups also differed in warming responses. Specifically, free-living filamentous fungi and ectomycorrhizal fungi responded positively to warming, on average, but yeasts responded negatively. Overall, warming-induced shifts in fungal communities might be accompanied by an increased ability to break down recalcitrant C. This change in potential function may reduce soil C storage under global warming.

The magnitude and direction of carbon cycle feedbacks under climate warming remain uncertain due to insufficient knowledge about the temperature sensitivities of soil microbial processes. Enzymatic rates could increase at higher temperatures, but this response could change over time if soil microbes adapt to warming. We used the Arrhenius relationship, biochemical transition state theory, and thermal physiology theory to predict the responses of extracellular enzyme V and K to temperature. Based on these concepts, we hypothesized that V and K would correlate positively with each other and show positive temperature sensitivities. For enzymes from warmer environments, we expected to find lower V , K , and K temperature sensitivity but higher V temperature sensitivity. We tested these hypotheses with isolates of the filamentous fungus Neurospora discreta collected from around the globe and with decomposing leaf litter from a warming experiment in Alaskan boreal forest. For Neurospora extracellular enzymes, V Q ranged from 1.48 to 2.25, and K Q ranged from 0.71 to 2.80. In agreement with theory, V and K were positively correlated for some enzymes, and V declined under experimental warming in Alaskan litter. However, the temperature sensitivities of V and K did not vary as expected with warming. We also found no relationship between temperature sensitivity of V or K and mean annual temperature of the isolation site for Neurospora strains. Declining V in the Alaskan warming treatment implies a short-term negative feedback to climate change, but the Neurospora results suggest that climate-driven changes in plant inputs and soil properties are important controls on enzyme kinetics in the long term. Our empirical data on enzyme V , K , and temperature sensitivities should be useful for parameterizing existing biogeochemical models, but they reveal a need to develop new theory on thermal adaptation mechanisms.

Fungi play fundamental ecological roles in terrestrial ecosystems. However, their distribution and diversity remain poorly described in natural communities, particularly in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. In order to identify environmental factors determining fungal community structure in these systems, we assessed their diversity in conjunction with soil physicochemical characteristics in a semi-arid ecosystem in Baja California, Mexico, endemic for Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever). Two different microhabitats, burrows (influenced by rodent activity) and topsoil, were compared in winter and summer. Using a metagenomic approach, the ITS1 region of nuclear ribosomal DNA was used as barcode. A total of 1940 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) were identified from 362 332 ITS1 sequences obtained by 454 pyrosequencing. Differences in fungal composition between seasons were clearly identified. Moreover, differences in composition between microhabitats were mainly correlated to significant differences in environmental factors, such as moisture and clay content in topsoil samples, and temperature and electrical conductivity in burrow samples. Overall, the fungal community structure (dominated by Ascomycota and Basidiomycota) was less variable between seasons in burrow than in topsoil samples. Coccidioides spp. went undetected by pyrosequencing. However, a nested PCR approach revealed its higher prevalence in burrows.

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Earth’s temperature is rising, and with this increase, fungal communities are responding and affecting soil carbon processes. At a long-term soil-warming experiment in a boreal forest in interior Alaska, warming and warming-associated drying alters the function of microbes, and thus, decomposition of carbon. But what genetic mechanisms and resource allocation strategies are behind these community shifts and soil carbon changes? Here, we evaluate fungal resource allocation efforts under long-term experimental warming (including associated drying) using soil metatranscriptomics. We profiled resource allocation efforts toward decomposition and cell metabolic maintenance, and we characterized community composition. We found that under the warming treatment, fungi allocate resources to cell metabolic maintenance at the expense of allocating resources to decomposition. In addition, we found that fungal orders that house taxa with stress-tolerant traits were more abundant under the warmed treatment compared to control conditions. Our results suggest that the warming treatment elicits an ecological tradeoff in resource allocation in the fungal communities, with potential to change ecosystem-scale carbon dynamics. Fungi preferentially invest in mechanisms that will ensure survival under warming and drying, such as cell metabolic maintenance, rather than in decomposition. Through metatranscriptomes, we provide mechanistic insight behind the response of fungi to climate change and consequences to soil carbon processes.

Humans are inextricably linked to each other and our natural world, and microorganisms lie at the nexus of those interactions. Microorganisms form genetically flexible, taxonomically diverse, and biochemically rich communities, i.e., microbiomes that are integral to the health and development of macroorganisms, societies, and ecosystems.