Plant community composition and traits modulate the impacts of drought intensity on soil microbial community composition and function

作者：Natalie J. Oram, Fiona Brennan, Nadine Praeg, Richard D. Bardgett, Paul Illmer, Johannes Ingrisch, Michael Bahn · 发表于：Soil Biology and Biochemistry · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1016/j.soilbio.2024.109644 · 被引用次数：28 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Legume Nitrogen Fixing Symbiosis、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology

Terrestrial ecosystems are increasingly threatened by extreme drought events. Soil microbial communities are central to terrestrial ecosystem function via their role in regulating biogeochemical cycling. Consequently, the impact of increasingly intense drought events on soil microbial communities will have knock-on effects for how ecosystems cope with climate change. In an outdoor grassland mesocosm experiment, we determined how increasing drought intensity affects bacterial and fungal community composition, and functioning, during and after drought. We also tested whether plant community resource acquisition strategy (fast- versus slow-strategy plant communities), plant community composition, and plant functional traits mediate soil microbial responses to increasing drought intensity. We found that increasing drought intensity markedly shifted bacterial and fungal community composition, and these effects persisted until the end of the experiment (two months after re-wetting). Bacterial and fungal communities that experienced severe droughts did not return to baseline composition, while those that experienced a mild drought did. Microbial community functioning (potential extracellular enzyme activity) was reduced at peak drought and shortly after re-wetting. While drought intensity effects on bacterial or fungal communities were insensitive to plant community resource acquisition strategy, functional group abundance (aboveground biomass of grass or forb plant species) composi...