Land use driven change in soil pH affects microbial carbon cycling processes

Ashish A. Malik*, Jeremy Puissant, Kate M. Buckeridge, Tim Goodall, Nico Jehmlich, Somak Chowdhury, Hyun Soon Gweon, Jodey M. Peyton, Kelly E. Mason, Maaike van Agtmaal, Aimeric Blaud, Ian M. Clark, Jeanette Whitaker, Richard F. Pywell, Nick Ostle, Gerd Gleixner, Robert I. Griffiths

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

360 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Soil microorganisms act as gatekeepers for soil–atmosphere carbon exchange by balancing the accumulation and release of soil organic matter. However, poor understanding of the mechanisms responsible hinders the development of effective land management strategies to enhance soil carbon storage. Here we empirically test the link between microbial ecophysiological traits and topsoil carbon content across geographically distributed soils and land use contrasts. We discovered distinct pH controls on microbial mechanisms of carbon accumulation. Land use intensification in low-pH soils that increased the pH above a threshold (~6.2) leads to carbon loss through increased decomposition, following alleviation of acid retardation of microbial growth. However, loss of carbon with intensification in near-neutral pH soils was linked to decreased microbial biomass and reduced growth efficiency that was, in turn, related to trade-offs with stress alleviation and resource acquisition. Thus, less-intensive management practices in near-neutral pH soils have more potential for carbon storage through increased microbial growth efficiency, whereas in acidic soils, microbial growth is a bigger constraint on decomposition rates.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3591
Number of pages10
JournalNature Communications
Volume9
Early online date4 Sept 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Sept 2018

Bibliographical note

A.A.M. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska–Curie grant no. 655240 and all other UK-based authors were funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council under a Soil Security Programme grant (NE/M017125/1). We also acknowledge Kathleen Eismann for her help in sample preparation for metaproteomic analysis; Heiko Moossen, Petra Linke and Steffen Ruehlow for assistance with stable carbon isotope analyses and all the land owners who provided sampling access.

The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information file, and from the corresponding author on request. The mass spectrometry proteomics data generated during the current study are available in the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository with the dataset identifier PXD010526.

Keywords

  • carbon cycle
  • ecosystem ecology
  • microbial ecology
  • soil microbiology

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