Reference for different sensitivities of greenhouse gases effluxes to warming climate among types of desert biological soil crust.

There is much uncertainty about how climate warming will impact greenhouse gases (GHG) budget in dry environments due to the lack of available data for desert biocrust soil. We implemented a 2.5-year field measurement of CO2, CH4 and N2O effluxes in cyanobacteria-dominated, moss-dominated and mixed (cyanobacteria, moss and lichen) biocrust soils using open-top-chambers to simulate climate warming (1.2 °C on average). Desert biocrust soils generally acted as a weak sink of atmospheric CH4 and N2O. Although warming effects on daily CO2, CH4, and N2O effluxes varied depending on sampling date and biocrust soil, there was no significant difference in daily, monthly and seasonal average CO2, CH4 and N2O effluxes between warming and control in most cases for three biocrust soils. However, warming caused a marginal (p = 0.06) decrease (14.2%) in annual accumulative CO2 efflux in moss-dominated biocrust soil due to the drought effects caused by warming indirectly and OTC sheltering of precipitation directly, while there was no significant difference between warming and control for cyanobacteria-dominated and mixed biocrust soils, implying a neutral response of GHG effluxes to climate warming. These results suggest that the GHG budget in arid desert biocrust soil would not be significantly changed in the warmer future when the direct negative effects of drought on CO2 effluxes were excluded. Therefore, a marginal decrease of accumulative CO2 effluxes in response to warming coupled with drought for moss-dominated biocrust soil might offer a weak negative feedback to warming and drier climate change pattern.

Ambient climate determines the directional trend of community stability under warming and grazing.

Changes in ecological processes over time in ambient treatments are often larger than the responses to manipulative treatments in climate change experiments. However, the impacts of human-driven environmental changes on the stability of natural grasslands have been typically assessed by comparing differences between manipulative plots and reference plots. Little is known about whether or how ambient climate regulates the effects of manipulative treatments and their underlying mechanisms. We collected two datasets, one a 36-year long-term observational dataset from 1983 to 2018, and the other a 10-year manipulative asymmetric warming and grazing experiment using infrared heaters with moderate grazing from 2006 to 2015 in an alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau. The 36-year observational dataset shows that there was a nonlinear response of community stability to ambient temperature with a positive relationship between them due to an increase in ambient temperature in the first 25 years and then a decrease in ambient temperature thereafter. Warming and grazing decreased community stability with experiment duration through an increase in legume cover and a decrease in species asynchrony, which was due to the decreasing background temperature through time during the 10-year experiment period. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity of community stability was higher under the ambient treatment than under the manipulative treatments. Therefore, our results suggested that ambient climate may control the directional trend of community stability while manipulative treatments may determine the temperature sensitivity of the response of community stability to climate relative to the ambient treatment. Our study emphasizes the importance of the context dependency of the response of community stability to human-driven environmental changes.

Expression of hormone receptors predicts survival and platinum sensitivity of high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) has abundant expression of hormone receptors, including androgen receptor (AR), estrogen receptor α (ER), and progesterone receptor (PR). The effects of hormone receptors on prognosis of HGSOC were first evaluated in online databases. Their prognostic values were then explored and validated in our inhouse TJ-cohort (92 HGSOC patients) and in a validation cohort (33 HGSOC patients), wherein hormone receptors were detected immunohistochemically. High expression of hormone receptors denoted longer progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and platinum-free interval (PFI). Platinum-sensitive patients had higher expression of hormone receptors than their counterparts. Correlation analysis revealed significant positive correlations between hormone receptors expression and survival. AR, ER, and PR had predictive and prognostic values, alone and in combination. By receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, co-expression of AR, ER, and PR had an improved predictive performance with an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.945. Expression of hormone receptors predicts survival and platinum sensitivity of HGSOC. AR, ER, and PR might be feasible prognostic biomarkers for HGSOC by immunohistochemical analysis.

Alpine soil carbon is vulnerable to rapid microbial decomposition under climate cooling.

As climate cooling is increasingly regarded as important natural variability of long-term global warming trends, there is a resurging interest in understanding its impact on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Here, we report a soil transplant experiment from lower to higher elevations in a Tibetan alpine grassland to simulate the impact of cooling on ecosystem community structure and function. Three years of cooling resulted in reduced plant productivity and microbial functional potential (for example, carbon respiration and nutrient cycling). Microbial genetic markers associated with chemically recalcitrant carbon decomposition remained unchanged despite a decrease in genes associated with chemically labile carbon decomposition. As a consequence, cooling-associated changes correlated with a decrease in soil organic carbon (SOC). Extrapolation of these results suggests that for every 1 °C decrease in annual average air temperature, 0.1 Pg (0.3%) of SOC would be lost from the Tibetan plateau. These results demonstrate that microbial feedbacks to cooling have the potential to differentially impact chemically labile and recalcitrant carbon turnover, which could lead to strong, adverse consequences on soil C storage. Our findings are alarming, considering the frequency of short-term cooling and its scale to disrupt ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling.

[Nitrogen fixation potential of biological soil crusts in Heidaigou open coal mine, Inner Mongolia, China].

Nitrogen limitation is common in terrestrial ecosystems, and it is particularly severe in damaged ecosystems in arid regions. Biological soil crusts (BSCs) , as a crucial component of recovered vegetation, play a vital role in nitrogen fixation during the ecological restoration processes of damaged ecosystems in arid and semi-arid regions. In this study, two dominant types of BSCs (i.e., cyanobacterial-algal crusts and moss crusts) that are widely distributed in the re-vegetated area of Heidaigou open pit coal mine were investigated. Samples were collected in the field and their nitrogenase activities (NA) were measured in the laboratory. The responses of NA to different hydro-thermal factors and the relationships between NA and herbs in addition to crust coverage were analyzed. The results indicated that BSCs under reconstructed vegetation at different succession stages, abandoned land and natural vegetation showed values of NA ranging from 9 to 150 µmol C2H4 . m-2 . h-1, and the NA value of algae crust (77 µmol C2H4 . m-2 . h-1) was markedly higher than that of moss crust (17 µmol C2H4 . m-2 . h-1). In the re-vegetated area, cyanobacterial-algal crust and moss crust under shrub-herb had higher NA values than those of crusts under arbor-shrnb and arbor-shrub-herb. The relationship between NA of the two BSCs and soil relative water content (10% - 100%) as well as culture temperature (5-45 °C) were of quadratic function. With elevated water content and cultural temperature, the NA values increased at the initial stage and then decreased, and reached the maximum value at 25 °C of cultural temperature and 60% or 80% of relative water content. The NA of cyanobacterial-algal crust had a significant quadratic function with herb coverage, as NA declined when herb coverage was higher than 20%. A significant negative correlation was observed between the NA of moss crusts and herb coverage. The NA values of the two types of BSCs had a significant positive correlation with crust coverage, since the NA was enhanced when the crust coverage was increased. We concluded that the different NA of the two BSCs in the re-vegetated area of Heidaigou open pit coal mine were caused by the composition of cryptograms. In addition, the differences of hydrothermal conditions and the composition of herb or crust coverage at different succession stages were also the contribution factors. Therefore, BSC construction and nitrogen fixation in re-vegetated areas is an important symbol for sustainable development in ecosystems.

Effects of Re-vegetation on Herbaceous Species Composition and Biological Soil Crusts Development in a Coal Mine Dumping Site.

Despite the critical roles of plant species' diversity and biological soil crusts (BSCs) in arid and semi-arid ecosystems, the restoration of the diversity of herbaceous species and BSCs are rarely discussed during the process of vegetation restoration of anthropogenically damaged areas in these regions. In this study, the herbaceous plant species composition, along with the BSCs coverage and thicknesses, was investigated at six different re-vegetation type sites, and the natural vegetation site of the Heidaigou open pit coal mine in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was used as a reference. The highest total species richness (16), as well as the species richness (4.4), occurred in the Tree and Herbaceous vegetation type site. The species composition similarities between the restored sites and the reference site were shown to be very low, and ranged from 0.09 to 0.42. Also, among the restored sites, the similarities of the species were fairly high and similar, and ranged from 0.45 to 0.93. The density and height of the re-vegetated woody plants were significantly correlated with the indexes of the diversity of the species. The Shrub vegetation type site showed the greatest total coverage (80%) of BSCs and algae crust coverage (48%). The Shrub and Herbaceous type had the greatest thicknesses of BSCs, with as much as 3.06 mm observed, which was followed by 2.64 mm for the Shrub type. There was a significant correlation observed between the coverage of the total BSCs, and the total vegetation and herbaceous vegetation coverage, as well as between the algae crust coverage and the herbaceous vegetation coverage. It has been suggested that the re-vegetated dwarf woody plant species (such as shrubs and semi-shrubs) should be chosen for the optimal methods of the restoration of herbaceous species diversity at dumping sites, and these should be planted with low density. Furthermore, the effects of vegetation coverage on the colonization and development the BSCs should be considered in order to reconstruct the vegetation in disturbed environments, such as mine dumpsites in arid areas.

[Nitrification of biological soil crusts and soil system during drought process and its response to temperature and moisture: A case study in the Shapotou region, Northwest China].

Two types of soil covered by biological soil crusts (BSCs) , i.e. moss and algae, and moving sand in the natural vegetation area at the southeast fringe of the Tengger Desert were collected intactly. They were incubated continuously for 20 days under two different temperatures (15 degrees C and 25 degrees C) and moistures (10% and 25%) condition in the laboratory, and soil NO3(-)-N contents were measured after 1, 2, 5, 8, 12, 20 days of incubation and net nitrification rate was evaluated during dehydration. The results showed that NO3(-)-N content of the moss-covered soil (2.29 mg x kg(-1)) was higher than that of the algae-covered soil (1.84 mg x kg(-1)) and sand (1.59 mg x kg(-1)). Net nitrification rate of the three soil types ranged from -3.47 to 2.97 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1). For the moss-covered soil and algae-covered soil at 10% and 25% moisture levels, the net nitrification rates at 15 degrees C were 75.1%, 0.7% and 99.1%, 21.3% higher than those at 25 degrees C, respectively. Also, the net nitrification rates at 15 degrees C and 10% moisture levels were 193.4% and 107.3% higher than those at 25 degrees C and 25% moisture levels, respectively. The results suggested that regardless of soil moisture increasing or decreasing under the global warming senior, the net nitrification rate of BSCs-soil system in the desert would probably be limited to some extent during drought process.

The microbe-mediated mechanisms affecting topsoil carbon stock in Tibetan grasslands.

Warming has been shown to cause soil carbon (C) loss in northern grasslands owing to accelerated microbial decomposition that offsets increased grass productivity. Yet, a multi-decadal survey indicated that the surface soil C stock in Tibetan alpine grasslands remained relatively stable. To investigate this inconsistency, we analyzed the feedback responses of soil microbial communities to simulated warming by soil transplant in Tibetan grasslands. Whereas microbial functional diversity decreased in response to warming, microbial community structure did not correlate with changes in temperature. The relative abundance of catabolic genes associated with nitrogen (N) and C cycling decreased with warming, most notably in genes encoding enzymes associated with more recalcitrant C substrates. By contrast, genes associated with C fixation increased in relative abundance. The relative abundance of genes associated with urease, glutamate dehydrogenase and ammonia monoxygenase (ureC, gdh and amoA) were significantly correlated with N2O efflux. These results suggest that unlike arid/semiarid grasslands, Tibetan grasslands maintain negative feedback mechanisms that preserve terrestrial C and N pools. To examine whether these trends were applicable to the whole plateau, we included these measurements in a model and verified that topsoil C stocks remained relatively stable. Thus, by establishing linkages between microbial metabolic potential and soil biogeochemical processes, we conclude that long-term C loss in Tibetan grasslands is ameliorated by a reduction in microbial decomposition of recalcitrant C substrates.

Contrasting soil microbial community functional structures in two major landscapes of the Tibetan alpine meadow.

The grassland and shrubland are two major landscapes of the Tibetan alpine meadow, a region very sensitive to the impact of global warming and anthropogenic perturbation. Herein, we report a study showing that a majority of differences in soil microbial community functional structures, measured by a functional gene array named GeoChip 4.0, in two adjacent shrubland and grassland areas, were explainable by environmental properties, suggesting that the harsh environments in the alpine grassland rendered niche adaptation important. Furthermore, genes involved in labile carbon degradation were more abundant in the shrubland than those of the grassland but genes involved in recalcitrant carbon degradation were less abundant, which was conducive to long-term carbon storage and sequestration in the shrubland despite low soil organic carbon content. In addition, genes of anerobic nitrogen cycling processes such as denitrification and dissimilatory nitrogen reduction were more abundant, shifting soil nitrogen cycling toward ammonium biosynthesis and consequently leading to higher soil ammonium contents. We also noted higher abundances of stress genes responsive to nitrogen limitation and oxygen limitation, which might be attributed to low total nitrogen and higher water contents in the shrubland. Together, these results provide mechanistic knowledge about microbial linkages to soil carbon and nitrogen storage and potential consequences of vegetation shifts in the Tibetan alpine meadow.

[Greenhouse gases fluxes of biological soil crusts and soil ecosystem in the artificial sand-fixing vegetation region in Shapotou area].

Uncertainties still existed for evaluating greenhouse gases fluxes (GHGs), including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) at the regional scale for desert ecosystem because available GHGs data about biological soil crusts (BSCs) was very scarce. In 2011 and 2012, soil ecosystem covered by various types of BSCs and BSCs at different succession stages in an artificial sand-fixing vegetation region established in various periods at southeast of the Shapotou area in Tengger Desert was selected to measure fluxes of CO2, CH4 and N2O using static chamber and gas chromatography. The results showed that curst type, recovery time and their interactions with sampling date significantly affected CO2 flux. Recovery time and interaction of crust type and sampling date significantly affected CH4 flux. Sampling date significantly affected the fluxes of CO2, CH4 and N2O. The mean annual flux of CO2 for moss crust (105.1 mg x m(-2) x h(-1)) was significantly higher than that of algae crust (37.7 mg x m(-2) x h(-1)) at the same succession stage. Annual mean CH4 and N2O consumption was 19.9 and 3.4 microg x m(-2) x h(-1), respectively. Mean annual consumption of CH4 and N2O for algae crust was slightly higher than that of moss crust, however, significant difference was not found. Ecosystem respiration (Re) of desert soil covered by BSCs increased with the recovery process of desert ecosystem, in contrast, consumption of CH4 and N2O decreased. Re of moss crust was more sensitive to temperature and moisture variation than algae crust and Re sensitivity of temperature and moisture gradually increased with the development and succession of BSCs. Both soil temperature and moisture were not the main factor to determine CH4 and N2O fluxes of BSCs-soil in desert ecosystem.

GeoChip as a metagenomics tool to analyze the microbial gene diversity along an elevation gradient.

To examine microbial responses to climate change, we used a microarray-based metagenomics tool named GeoChip 4.0 to profile soil microbial functional genes along four sites/elevations of a Tibetan mountainous grassland. We found that microbial communities differed among four elevations. Soil pH, temperature, NH4 (+)-N and vegetation diversity were four major attributes affecting soil microbial communities. Here we describe in details the experiment design, the data normalization process, soil and vegetation analyses associated with the study published on ISME Journal in 2014 [1], whose raw data have been uploaded to Gene Expression Omnibus (accession number GSM1185243).

The microbial gene diversity along an elevation gradient of the Tibetan grassland.

Tibet is one of the most threatened regions by climate warming, thus understanding how its microbial communities function may be of high importance for predicting microbial responses to climate changes. Here, we report a study to profile soil microbial structural genes, which infers functional roles of microbial communities, along four sites/elevations of a Tibetan mountainous grassland, aiming to explore the potential microbial responses to climate changes via a strategy of space-for-time substitution. Using a microarray-based metagenomics tool named GeoChip 4.0, we showed that microbial communities were distinct for most but not all of the sites. Substantial variations were apparent in stress, N and C-cycling genes, but they were in line with the functional roles of these genes. Cold shock genes were more abundant at higher elevations. Also, gdh converting ammonium into urea was more abundant at higher elevations, whereas ureC converting urea into ammonium was less abundant, which was consistent with soil ammonium contents. Significant correlations were observed between N-cycling genes (ureC, gdh and amoA) and nitrous oxide flux, suggesting that they contributed to community metabolism. Lastly, we found by Canonical correspondence analysis, Mantel tests and the similarity tests that soil pH, temperature, NH4(+)-N and vegetation diversity accounted for the majority (81.4%) of microbial community variations, suggesting that these four attributes were major factors affecting soil microbial communities. On the basis of these observations, we predict that climate changes in the Tibetan grasslands are very likely to change soil microbial community functional structure, with particular impacts on microbial N-cycling genes and consequently microbe-mediated soil N dynamics.

Responses of the functional structure of soil microbial community to livestock grazing in the Tibetan alpine grassland.

Microbes play key roles in various biogeochemical processes, including carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling. However, changes of microbial community at the functional gene level by livestock grazing, which is a global land-use activity, remain unclear. Here we use a functional gene array, GeoChip 4.0, to examine the effects of free livestock grazing on the microbial community at an experimental site of Tibet, a region known to be very sensitive to anthropogenic perturbation and global warming. Our results showed that grazing changed microbial community functional structure, in addition to aboveground vegetation and soil geochemical properties. Further statistical tests showed that microbial community functional structures were closely correlated with environmental variables, and variations in microbial community functional structures were mainly controlled by aboveground vegetation, soil C/N ratio, and NH4 (+) -N. In-depth examination of N cycling genes showed that abundances of N mineralization and nitrification genes were increased at grazed sites, but denitrification and N-reduction genes were decreased, suggesting that functional potentials of relevant bioprocesses were changed. Meanwhile, abundances of genes involved in methane cycling, C fixation, and degradation were decreased, which might be caused by vegetation removal and hence decrease in litter accumulation at grazed sites. In contrast, abundances of virulence, stress, and antibiotics resistance genes were increased because of the presence of livestock. In conclusion, these results indicated that soil microbial community functional structure was very sensitive to the impact of livestock grazing and revealed microbial functional potentials in regulating soil N and C cycling, supporting the necessity to include microbial components in evaluating the consequence of land-use and/or climate changes.

Methane emission by plant communities in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: a new experimental study of alpine meadows and oat pasture.

Recently, plant-derived methane (CH(4)) emission has been questioned because limited evidence of the chemical mechanism has been identified to account for the process. We conducted an experiment with four treatments (i.e. winter-grazed, natural alpine meadow; naturally restored alpine meadow eight years after cultivation; oat pasture and bare soil without roots) during the growing seasons of 2007 and 2008 to examine the question of CH(4) emission by plant communities in the alpine meadow. Each treatment consumed CH(4) in closed, opaque chambers in the field, but two types of alpine meadow vegetation reduced CH(4) consumption compared with bare soil, whereas oat pasture increased consumption. This result could imply that meadow vegetation produces CH(4). However, measurements of soil temperature and water content showed significant differences between vegetated and bare soil and appeared to explain differences in CH(4) production between treatments. Our study strongly suggests that the apparent CH(4) production by vegetation, when compared with bare soil in some previous studies, might represent differences in soil temperature and water-filled pore space and not the true vegetation sources of CH(4).