Soil bacterial and fungal response to wildfires in the Canadian boreal forest across a burn severity gradient

Whitman, Thea; Whitman, Ellen; Woolet, Jamie; Flannigan, Mike D.; Thompson, Dan K.; Parisien, Marc‐André

doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2019.107571

Cited by 171 publications

(246 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…Fire effects on the soil microbial community (heterotrophs and symbionts) increase with fire severity (Whitman et al., 2019) which can alter plant recovery and microbially mediated ecosystem processes after fire events. Overall, fire decreases bacterial biomass and diversity, fungal species richness and mycorrhizal colonization, although responses of fungal species can be ephemeral (Dove & Hart, 2017).…”

Section: Fire Sets Ecological Ground Rules Through Soilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Combined with the inherent heterogeneity of fire, spatial variability in soil properties can be important for determining post‐fire changes in nutrients at the landscape scale that can alter whole ecosystems (Homann, Bormann, & Boyle, 2001). However, it is unclear how heterogeneity in fire behaviour determines heterogeneity in soil responses over time, in large part because of the limited studies that investigate fire severity gradients (Adkins et al., 2019; Garcia‐Oliva et al., 2018; Hewitt, Hollingsworth, Chapin, & Taylor, 2016; Kolka et al., 2017; Whitman et al., 2019). Most of our understanding of how fire severity influences soil responses is based on the comparison between wildfire and prescribed fire with the assumption that wildfires are more severe than prescribed fires (Nave, Vance, Swanston, & Curtis, 2011).…”

Section: Fire Sets Ecological Ground Rules Through Soilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers

et al. 2020

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Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire‐dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth. We explore research priorities in six categories of fire ecology: (a) characteristics of fire regimes, (b) changing fire regimes, (c) fire effects on above‐ground ecology, (d) fire effects on below‐ground ecology, (e) fire behaviour and (f) fire ecology modelling. We identify three emergent themes: the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts. Synthesis: As fire regimes and our relationships with fire continue to change, prioritizing these research areas will facilitate understanding of the ecological causes and consequences of future fires and rethinking fire management alternatives.

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Section: Fire Sets Ecological Ground Rules Through Soilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fire Sets Ecological Ground Rules Through Soilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers

et al. 2020

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“…Additionally, some of these PyOM-responsive bacteria are from genera that have been identified as being fire-responsive in other studies (e.g., Microvirga (55), Bacillus (56), and Noviherbaspirillum (57)). Because all of the named taxa were also responsive to OM amendments over the short term, we raise the question of whether these OTUs may be responding to the more easily-mineralizable fractions of PyOM, or, in the case of fires, also to fire-released OM.…”

Section: Pyom Responders Differ Across Soils and Do Not Reflect A Commentioning

confidence: 83%

Microbial community shifts reflect losses of native soil carbon with pyrogenic and fresh organic matter additions and are greatest in low-carbon soils

Whitman¹,

DeCiucies²,

Hanley³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in regulating global climate change, carbon and nutrient cycling in soils, and soil moisture. Organic matter (OM) additions to soils can affect the rate at which SOC is mineralized by microbes, with potentially important effects on SOC stocks. Understanding how pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) affects the cycling of native SOC (nSOC) and the soil microbes responsible for these effects is important for fire-affected ecosystems as well as for biochar-amended systems. We used an incubation trial with five different soils from National Ecological Observatory Network sites across the US and 13C-labelled 350°C corn stover PyOM and fresh corn stover OM to trace nSOC-derived CO2 emissions with and without PyOM and OM amendments. We used high-throughput sequencing of rRNA genes to characterize bacterial, archaeal, and fungal communities and their response to PyOM and OM. We found that the effects of amendments on nSOC-derived CO2 reflected the unamended soil C status, where amendments increased C mineralization the most in low-C soils. OM additions produced much greater effects on nSOC-CO2 emissions than PyOM additions. Furthermore, the magnitude of microbial community composition change mirrored the magnitude of increases in nSOC-CO2, indicating a specific subset of microbes were likely responsible for the observed changes in nSOC mineralization. However, PyOM responders differed across soils and did not necessarily reflect a common 'charosphere'. Overall, this study suggests that soils that already have low SOC may be particularly vulnerable to short-term increases in SOC loss with OM or PyOM additions.

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“…Soil ecosystem stability is influenced by the burning frequencies and can sustain prescribed burning occurring with more than four-year intervals [16]. An investigation of wildfire effects on soil bacterial and fungal communities in an extreme fire season in the northwestern Canadian boreal forest showed that fire occurrence, as well as moisture regime, are among the significant predictors of post combustion soil microbial community composition [17].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generation of Viable Bacterial and Fungal Aerosols during Biomass Combustion

Mirskaya

Agranovski

2020

Atmosphere

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Biomass combustion is known to be one of the main contributors to air pollution. However, the influence of biomass burning on the distribution of viable bacterial and fungal aerosols is uncertain. This study aimed to examine survivability of bacteria and fungi in the post-combustion products, and to investigate the aerosolization of viable cells during combustion of different types of organic materials. Laboratory experiments included a small-scale combustion of organic materials contaminated with microorganisms in order to determine the survivability of microbes in the combustion products and the potential aerosolization of viable cells during combustion. Field experiments were completed during intentional and prescribed biomass burning events in order to investigate the aerosolization mechanisms that are not available at the laboratory scale. Laboratory experiments did not demonstrate aerosolization of microorganisms during biomass combustion. However, the relatively high survival rate of bacteria in the combustion products ought to be accounted for, as the surviving microorganisms can potentially be aerosolized by high velocity natural air flows. Field investigations demonstrated significant increase in the bioaerosol concentration above natural background during and after biomass combustion.

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Soil bacterial and fungal response to wildfires in the Canadian boreal forest across a burn severity gradient

Cited by 171 publications

References 88 publications

Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers

Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers

Microbial community shifts reflect losses of native soil carbon with pyrogenic and fresh organic matter additions and are greatest in low-carbon soils

Generation of Viable Bacterial and Fungal Aerosols during Biomass Combustion

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