Predicting the Responses of Soil Nitrite-Oxidizers to Multi-Factorial Global Change: A Trait-Based Approach.

Soil microbial diversity is huge and a few grams of soil contain more bacterial taxa than there are bird species on Earth. This high diversity often makes predicting the responses of soil bacteria to environmental change intractable and restricts our capacity to predict the responses of soil functions to global change. Here, using a long-term field experiment in a California grassland, we studied the main and interactive effects of three global change factors (increased atmospheric CO2 concentration, precipitation and nitrogen addition, and all their factorial combinations, based on global change scenarios for central California) on the potential activity, abundance and dominant taxa of soil nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB). Using a trait-based model, we then tested whether categorizing NOB into a few functional groups unified by physiological traits enables understanding and predicting how soil NOB respond to global environmental change. Contrasted responses to global change treatments were observed between three main NOB functional types. In particular, putatively mixotrophic Nitrobacter, rare under most treatments, became dominant under the 'High CO2+Nitrogen+Precipitation' treatment. The mechanistic trait-based model, which simulated ecological niches of NOB types consistent with previous ecophysiological reports, helped predicting the observed effects of global change on NOB and elucidating the underlying biotic and abiotic controls. Our results are a starting point for representing the overwhelming diversity of soil bacteria by a few functional types that can be incorporated into models of terrestrial ecosystems and biogeochemical processes.

Seasonal changes in carbon and nitrogen compound concentrations in a Quercus petraea chronosequence.

Forest productivity declines with tree age. This decline may be due to changes in metabolic functions, resource availability and/or changes in resource allocation (between growth, reproduction and storage) with tree age. Carbon and nitrogen remobilization/storage processes are key to tree growth and survival. However, studies of the effects of tree age on these processes are scarce and have not yet considered seasonal carbon and nitrogen variations in situ. This study was carried out in a chronosequence of sessile oak (Quercus petraea Liebl.) for 1 year to survey the effects of tree age on the seasonal changes of carbon and nitrogen compounds in several tree compartments, focusing on key phenological stages. Our results highlight a general pattern of carbon and nitrogen function at all tree ages, with carbon reserve remobilization at budburst for growth, followed by carbon reserve formation during the leafy season and carbon reserve use during winter for maintenance. The variation in concentrations of nitrogen compounds shows less amplitude than that of carbon compounds. Storage as proteins occurs later, and mainly depends on leaf nitrogen remobilization and root uptake in autumn. We highlight several differences between tree age groups, in particular the loss of carbon storage function of fine and medium-sized roots with tree ageing. Moreover, the pattern of carbon compound accumulation in branches supports the hypothesis of a preferential allocation of carbon towards growth until the end of wood formation in juvenile trees, at the expense of the replenishment of carbon stores, while mature trees start allocating carbon to storage right after budburst. Our results demonstrate that at key phenological stages, physiological and developmental functions differ with tree age, and together with environmental conditions, influence the carbon and nitrogen concentration variations in sessile oaks.

Global change could amplify fire effects on soil greenhouse gas emissions.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the combined impacts of global environmental changes and ecological disturbances on ecosystem functioning, even though such combined impacts might play critical roles in shaping ecosystem processes that can in turn feed back to climate change, such as soil emissions of greenhouse gases. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We took advantage of an accidental, low-severity wildfire that burned part of a long-term global change experiment to investigate the interactive effects of a fire disturbance and increases in CO(2) concentration, precipitation and nitrogen supply on soil nitrous oxide (N(2)O) emissions in a grassland ecosystem. We examined the responses of soil N(2)O emissions, as well as the responses of the two main microbial processes contributing to soil N(2)O production--nitrification and denitrification--and of their main drivers. We show that the fire disturbance greatly increased soil N(2)O emissions over a three-year period, and that elevated CO(2) and enhanced nitrogen supply amplified fire effects on soil N(2)O emissions: emissions increased by a factor of two with fire alone and by a factor of six under the combined influence of fire, elevated CO(2) and nitrogen. We also provide evidence that this response was caused by increased microbial denitrification, resulting from increased soil moisture and soil carbon and nitrogen availability in the burned and fertilized plots. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results indicate that the combined effects of fire and global environmental changes can exceed their effects in isolation, thereby creating unexpected feedbacks to soil greenhouse gas emissions. These findings highlight the need to further explore the impacts of ecological disturbances on ecosystem functioning in the context of global change if we wish to be able to model future soil greenhouse gas emissions with greater confidence.