Winter climate change affects growing‐season soil microbial biomass and activity in northern hardwood forests

Durán, Jorge; Morse, Jennifer L.; Groffman, Peter M.; Campbell, John L.; Christenson, Lynn M.; Driscoll, Charles T.; Fahey, Timothy J.; Fisk, Melany C.; Mitchell, M. J.; Templer, Pamela H.

doi:10.1111/gcb.12624

Cited by 88 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…Relative to aboveground plant structures, soils are buffered to changes in temperature, precipitation, and possibly to extreme events like frost (Durán et al 2014). Belowground communities are, therefore, structured by different environmental conditions than aboveground communities (Fierer and Jackson 2006) and are constrained by different life history characteristics.…”

Section: Climate Change Alters Plant and Microbial Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct and indirect effects of climate change on soil microbial and soil microbial‐plant interactions: What lies ahead?

et al. 2015

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Abstract. Global change is altering species distributions and thus interactions among organisms.Organisms live in concert with thousands of other species, some beneficial, some pathogenic, some which have little to no effect in complex communities. Since natural communities are composed of organisms with very different life history traits and dispersal ability it is unlikely they will all respond to climatic change in a similar way. Disjuncts in plant-pollinator and plant-herbivore interactions under global change have been relatively well described, but plant-soil microorganism and soil microbe-microbe relationships have received less attention. Since soil microorganisms regulate nutrient transformations, provide plants with nutrients, allow co-existence among neighbors, and control plant populations, changes in soil microorganism-plant interactions could have significant ramifications for plant community composition and ecosystem function. In this paper we explore how climatic change affects soil microbes and soil microbe-plant interactions directly and indirectly, discuss what we see as emerging and exciting questions and areas for future research, and discuss what ramifications changes in these interactions may have on the composition and function of ecosystems.

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Section: Climate Change Alters Plant and Microbial Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct and indirect effects of climate change on soil microbial and soil microbial‐plant interactions: What lies ahead?

et al. 2015

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“…Winter snow and soil frost depth are inversely related along the elevation gradient at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF), NH (USA), where high elevation sites experience a greater depth and duration of snow cover compared to low elevation sites (Durán et al. ). Consequently, soil frost depth and duration is greater at low elevation compared to high elevation sites, creating a natural winter climate gradient.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Snow depth and duration during winter are positively related to microbial biomass, protease and oxidative enzyme production, microbial respiration, and nitrification in the springtime at HBEF (Durán et al. , Sorensen et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced snow cover alters root‐microbe interactions and decreases nitrification rates in a northern hardwood forest

Sørensen

Templer

Christenson

et al. 2016

Ecology

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Snow cover is projected to decline during the next century in many ecosystems that currently experience a seasonal snowpack. Because snow insulates soils from frigid winter air temperatures, soils are expected to become colder and experience more winter soil freeze‐thaw cycles as snow cover continues to decline. Tree roots are adversely affected by snowpack reduction, but whether loss of snow will affect root‐microbe interactions remains largely unknown. The objective of this study was to distinguish and attribute direct (e.g., winter snow‐ and/or soil frost‐mediated) vs. indirect (e.g., root‐mediated) effects of winter climate change on microbial biomass, the potential activity of microbial exoenzymes, and net N mineralization and nitrification rates. Soil cores were incubated in situ in nylon mesh that either allowed roots to grow into the soil core (2 mm pore size) or excluded root ingrowth (50 μm pore size) for up to 29 months along a natural winter climate gradient at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, NH (USA). Microbial biomass did not differ among ingrowth or exclusion cores. Across sampling dates, the potential activities of cellobiohydrolase, phenol oxidase, and peroxidase, and net N mineralization rates were more strongly related to soil volumetric water content (P < 0.05; R2 = 0.25–0.46) than to root biomass, snow or soil frost, or winter soil temperature (R2 < 0.10). Root ingrowth was positively related to soil frost (P < 0.01; R2 = 0.28), suggesting that trees compensate for overwinter root mortality caused by soil freezing by re‐allocating resources towards root production. At the sites with the deepest snow cover, root ingrowth reduced nitrification rates by 30% (P < 0.01), showing that tree roots exert significant influence over nitrification, which declines with reduced snow cover. If soil freezing intensifies over time, then greater compensatory root growth may reduce nitrification rates directly via plant‐microbe N competition and indirectly through a negative feedback on soil moisture, resulting in lower N availability to trees in northern hardwood forests.

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“…Chronic winter warming has led to controversial findings with increased N leaching (e.g., Kaste et al 2008) or no effects on N leaching (e.g., Turner and Henry 2010). Less snow and higher soil temperature variability during the winter is further related to lower N levels in the soil solution, indicating less microbial activity under these conditions (Durán et al 2014). In line with this, increased N leaching after soil frost events in winter has been linked to reduced uptake by the vegetation due to frost damage of roots rather than increased N mobilization (Groffman et al 2001b;Matzner and Borken 2008;Campbell et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen leaching is enhanced after a winter warm spell but mainly controlled by vegetation composition in temperate zone mesocosms

et al. 2015

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Background and aims Leaching of nitrogen (N) from natural ecosystems poses serious environmental problems. Extreme events such as winter warm spells could exacerbate N leaching by disrupting biogeochemical cycles and will become more frequent with the projected climate change.Methods We used lysimeters to investigate N leaching in response to a 12-day winter warm spell at two field sites with contrasting winter climate and in seven different vegetation covers in 140 well established mesocosms. Results Mean rates of N leaching reached 3.4 ± 0.4 mg N m −2 d −1 over the 49 days of observations in late winter/ early spring. The winter warm spell resulted in an 82 % increase of N leaching after the warm spell (up to 18 mg N l −1 ). Stronger leaching occurred at the colder site which can be explained by plants becoming photosynthetically active with subsequent frost damaging their above-ground tissue due to missing insulation by snow and/or dehardening, resulting in reduced N uptake. N leaching differed by >600 % among contrasting vegetation composition with almost no leaching from grassland types and strongest leaching from shrubland types that even surpassed leaching from bare ground controls. Conclusions Winter warm spells can affect the biogeochemistry of temperate ecosystems with plant performance and vegetation composition controlling the amount of N leaching.

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Winter climate change affects growing‐season soil microbial biomass and activity in northern hardwood forests

Cited by 88 publications

References 55 publications

Direct and indirect effects of climate change on soil microbial and soil microbial‐plant interactions: What lies ahead?

Direct and indirect effects of climate change on soil microbial and soil microbial‐plant interactions: What lies ahead?

Reduced snow cover alters root‐microbe interactions and decreases nitrification rates in a northern hardwood forest

Nitrogen leaching is enhanced after a winter warm spell but mainly controlled by vegetation composition in temperate zone mesocosms

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