Using proxies of microbial community‐weighted means traits to explain the cascading effect of management intensity, soil and plant traits on ecosystem resilience in mountain grasslands

Piton, Gabin; Legay, Nicolas; Arnoldi, Cindy; Lavorel, Sandra; Clément, Jean Christophe; Foulquier, Arnaud

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13327

Cited by 34 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 106 publications

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“…Under the respective condition, microbial communities might have developed a more efficient enzymatic machinery and can thus better extract N from soil organic matter, some of which being profitable to forage plants. Lower litter N:P ratios might have also potentially selected for more copiotrophic microbes 80 and thus increase the mineralization potential. Characterized by a low biomass N:P ratio and fast growth rates 81 , copiotrophic microbes could shift from N immobilization to N mineralization at a lower N:P ratio compared to oligotrophic microbes 79 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compared to conventional, ecological intensive management promotes beneficial proteolytic soil microbial communities for agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change-induced rain regimes

Lori

Piton

Symanczik

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Projected climate change and rainfall variability will affect soil microbial communities, biogeochemical cycling and agriculture. Nitrogen (N) is the most limiting nutrient in agroecosystems and its cycling and availability is highly dependent on microbial driven processes. In agroecosystems, hydrolysis of organic nitrogen (N) is an important step in controlling soil N availability. We analyzed the effect of management (ecological intensive vs. conventional intensive) on N-cycling processes and involved microbial communities under climate change-induced rain regimes. Terrestrial model ecosystems originating from agroecosystems across Europe were subjected to four different rain regimes for 263 days. Using structural equation modelling we identified direct impacts of rain regimes on N-cycling processes, whereas N-related microbial communities were more resistant. In addition to rain regimes, management indirectly affected N-cycling processes via modifications of N-related microbial community composition. Ecological intensive management promoted a beneficial N-related microbial community composition involved in N-cycling processes under climate change-induced rain regimes. Exploratory analyses identified phosphorus-associated litter properties as possible drivers for the observed management effects on N-related microbial community composition. This work provides novel insights into mechanisms controlling agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change. As in many terrestrial ecosystems, nitrogen (N) is the most limiting nutrient for plant growth in agroecosystems 1-3. The last century has been characterized by a considerable increase of N inputs in agricultural soils 4-7 , mostly in mineral form (NH 4 +), making plant growth less dependent on microbial N provisioning. However, the increased amount of reactive N in the environment has severe environmental and human health consequences 7 .

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compared to conventional, ecological intensive management promotes beneficial proteolytic soil microbial communities for agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change-induced rain regimes

Lori

Piton

Symanczik

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Life‐strategy (strategy hereafter) concepts in microbial ecology might shed light on the factors that control microbial community resilience (Allison & Martiny, 2008; de Vries & Shade, 2013; Krause et al., 2014; Lavorel & Garnier, 2002; Malik et al., 2019; Piton, Legay, et al., 2020; Wallenstein & Hall, 2012). The copiotrophic–oligotrophic strategy continuum (Fierer et al., 2007), equivalent to r ‐ K strategy, could help classifying soil microbes according to their traits and resilience under climate change (de Vries & Griffiths, 2018; de Vries & Shade, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This knowledge gap greatly limits our capacity to assess and predict the effects of climate change on microbial communities and ecosystems (de Vries & Griffiths, 2018). Moreover, the extent to which soil microbial communities are impacted by, and can recover from climatic stresses may differ substantially between soils under different management treatments and these interactions are still poorly understood (de Vries et al., 2012, 2018; Fuchslueger et al., 2019; Karlowsky, Augusti, Ingrisch, Hasibeder, et al., 2018; Piton, Legay, et al., 2020). It is known that conventional soil management has a strong impact on microbial community composition and functioning, resulting in a decline in soil biodiversity and biomass (de Vries et al., 2013; Tsiafouli et al., 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, the potential of microbial communities to decompose soil organic matter was also assessed by measuring the potential activities of seven extracellular enzymes degrading C‐, N‐ or P‐rich substrates (Nannipieri et al., 2018). In addition, indicators of copiotrophic copiotrophic–oligotrophic oligotrophic strategies (Fungal:Bacterial, Gram‐positive:Gram‐negative biomass ratio (de Vries & Shade, 2013) and mass‐specific enzyme activity (Piton, Legay, et al., 2020) as well as soil microbial community composition (phospholipid fatty acids method) resilience were measured to investigate mechanisms underlying the resilience of the two main properties describe above.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Resistance–recovery trade‐off of soil microbial communities under altered rain regimes: An experimental test across European agroecosystems

Piton

Foulquier

Martínez‐García

et al. 2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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With the increased occurrence of climate extremes, there is an urgent need to better understand how management strategies affect the capacity of the soil microbial community to maintain its ecosystem functions (e.g. nutrient cycling). To address this issue, intact monoliths were extracted from conventional and ecological managed grasslands in three countries across Europe and exposed under common air condition (temperature and moisture) to one of three altered rain regimes (dry, wet and intermittent wet/dry) as compared to a normal regime. Subsequently, we compared the resistance and recovery of the soil microbial biomass, potential enzyme activities and community composition. The microbial community composition differed with soil management and rain regimes. Soil microbial biomass increased from the wetter to the dryer rain regime, paralleling an increase of available carbon and nutrients, suggesting low sensitivity to soil moisture reduction but nutritional limitations of soil microbes. Conversely, enzyme activities decreased with all altered rain regimes. Resistance and recovery (considering absolute distance between normal and altered rain regime) of the microbial communities depended on soil management. Conventional‐intensive management showed higher resistance of two fundamental properties for nutrient cycling (i.e. bacterial biomass and extracellular enzyme activities) yet associated with more important changes in microbial community composition. This suggests an internal community reorganization promoting biomass and activity resistance. Conversely, under ecological management bacterial biomass and enzyme activities showed better recovery capacity, whereas no or very low recovery of these properties was observed under conventional management. These management effects were consistent across the three altered rain regimes investigated, indicating common factors controlling microbial communities’ response to different climate‐related stresses. Synthesis and applications. Our study provides experimental evidence for an important trade‐off for agroecosystem management between (a) stabilizing nutrient cycling potential during an altered rain regime period at the expense of very low recovery capacity and potential long‐term effect (conventional sites) and (b) promoting the capacity of the microbial community to recover its functional potential after the end of the stress (ecological sites). Thus, management based on ecologically sound principles may be the best option to sustain long‐term soil functioning under climate change.

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“…The relative demand of the microbial community for nitrogen compared to phosphorus can be assessed through ratios of exoenzymes (i.e. EEN/EEP, Piton et al 2019). For example, a high EEN/ EEP ratio means that plant competition with microbes will be stronger for nitrogen than for phosphorus, and might reduce nitrogen availability for plants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate, soil resources and microbial activity shape the distributions of mountain plants based on their functional traits

et al. 2020

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While soil ecosystems undergo important modifications due to global change, the effect of soil properties on plant distributions is still poorly understood. Plant growth is not only controlled by soil physico-chemistry but also by microbial activities through the decomposition of organic matter and the recycling of nutrients essential for plants. A growing body of evidence also suggests that plant functional traits modulate species' response to environmental gradients. However, no study has yet contrasted the importance of soil physico-chemistry, microbial activities and climate on plant species distributions, while accounting for how plant functional traits can influence speciesspecific responses. Using hierarchical effects in a multi-species distribution model, we investigate how four functional traits related to resource acquisition (plant height, leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio, leaf dry matter content and specific leaf area) modulate the response of 44 plant species to climatic variables, soil physico-chemical properties and microbial decomposition activity (i.e. exoenzymatic activities) in the French Alps. Our hierarchical trait-based model allowed to predict well 41 species according to the TSS statistic. In addition to climate, the combination of soil C/N, as a measure of organic matter quality, and exoenzymatic activity, as a measure of microbial decomposition activity, strongly improved predictions of plant distributions. Plant traits played an important role. In particular, species with conservative traits performed better under limiting nutrient conditions but were outcompeted by exploitative plants in more favorable environments. We demonstrate tight associations between microbial decomposition activity, plant functional traits associated to different resource acquisition strategies and plant distributions. This highlights the importance of plant-soil linkages for mountain plant distributions. These results are crucial for biodiversity modelling in a world where both climatic and soil systems are undergoing profound and rapid transformations.

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Using proxies of microbial community‐weighted means traits to explain the cascading effect of management intensity, soil and plant traits on ecosystem resilience in mountain grasslands

Cited by 34 publications

References 106 publications

Compared to conventional, ecological intensive management promotes beneficial proteolytic soil microbial communities for agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change-induced rain regimes

Compared to conventional, ecological intensive management promotes beneficial proteolytic soil microbial communities for agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change-induced rain regimes

Resistance–recovery trade‐off of soil microbial communities under altered rain regimes: An experimental test across European agroecosystems

Climate, soil resources and microbial activity shape the distributions of mountain plants based on their functional traits

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