Abstract
Snow strongly affects ecosystem functioning in alpine environments with potential carry-over effects outside of snow periods. However, it is unclear whether changes in snow cover affect microbial community functioning in summer. In a field experiment, we tested whether manipulation of snow cover affected the functional capabilities of the microbial community either directly, or indirectly through concomitant changes in the vegetation. While 23 years of differential snow depth and persistence fundamentally changed the vegetation composition, the microbial community's ability to catabolize a range of carbon compounds was not altered. Instead, soil moisture content was the key driver of carbon catabolism by the microbial community.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 101-104 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Soil Biology and Biochemistry |
| Volume | 124 |
| Early online date | 9 Jun 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 30 Sept 2018 |
Bibliographical note
We are grateful to Christian Rixen for his help in the field and Clare Cameron, Yvonne Cook and Roxane Andersen for their help in the lab. ERJW was supported by an ERASMUS exchange scholarship (European Union, UU-ER/2008/006730) and analyses were funded by the James Hutton Institute and the University of Aberdeen. SW was funded by Swiss National Science Foundation grant PBZHA—117043 and the de Giacomi and HH Schaefer foundations. The data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.85hg502.Keywords
- Carbon cycling
- Carry-over effects
- Climate change
- Microbial community
- Alpine moss heath
- Soil legacy
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Two decades of altered snow cover does not affect soil microbial ability to catabolize carbon compounds in an oceanic alpine heath
Wubs, E. R. J. (Contributor), Woodin, S. J. (Contributor), Stutter, M. I. (Contributor), Wipf, S. (Contributor), Sommerkorn, M. (Contributor), Van Der Wal, R. (Contributor), Wubs, E. R. J. (Contributor) & Paton, G. (Other), DRYAD, 1 Jan 2019
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.85hg502, http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.85hg502
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Data from: Two decades of altered snow cover does not affect soil microbial ability to catabolize carbon compounds in an oceanic alpine heath
Wubs, E. R. J. (Creator), Woodin, S. (Creator), Stutter, M. I. (Creator), Wipf, S. (Creator), Van der Wal, R. (Creator) & Paton, G. (Other), Dryad Digital Repository, 6 Jun 2019
Dataset