TY - JOUR

T1 - Land management shapes drought responses of dominant soil microbial taxa across grasslands

AU - Lavallee, J M

AU - Chomel, M

AU - Alvarez Segura, N

AU - de Castro, F

AU - Goodall, T

AU - Magilton, M

AU - Rhymes, J M

AU - Delgado-Baquerizo, M

AU - Griffiths, R I

AU - Baggs, E M

AU - Caruso, T

AU - de Vries, F T

AU - Emmerson, M

AU - Johnson, D

AU - Bardgett, R D

N1 - © 2024. The Author(s).

PY - 2024/1/2

Y1 - 2024/1/2

N2 - Soil microbial communities are dominated by a relatively small number of taxa that may play outsized roles in ecosystem functioning, yet little is known about their capacities to resist and recover from climate extremes such as drought, or how environmental context mediates those responses. Here, we imposed an in situ experimental drought across 30 diverse UK grassland sites with contrasting management intensities and found that: (1) the majority of dominant bacterial (85%) and fungal (89%) taxa exhibit resistant or opportunistic drought strategies, possibly contributing to their ubiquity and dominance across sites; and (2) intensive grassland management decreases the proportion of drought-sensitive and non-resilient dominant bacteria-likely via alleviation of nutrient limitation and pH-related stress under fertilisation and liming-but has the opposite impact on dominant fungi. Our results suggest a potential mechanism by which intensive management promotes bacteria over fungi under drought with implications for soil functioning.

AB - Soil microbial communities are dominated by a relatively small number of taxa that may play outsized roles in ecosystem functioning, yet little is known about their capacities to resist and recover from climate extremes such as drought, or how environmental context mediates those responses. Here, we imposed an in situ experimental drought across 30 diverse UK grassland sites with contrasting management intensities and found that: (1) the majority of dominant bacterial (85%) and fungal (89%) taxa exhibit resistant or opportunistic drought strategies, possibly contributing to their ubiquity and dominance across sites; and (2) intensive grassland management decreases the proportion of drought-sensitive and non-resilient dominant bacteria-likely via alleviation of nutrient limitation and pH-related stress under fertilisation and liming-but has the opposite impact on dominant fungi. Our results suggest a potential mechanism by which intensive management promotes bacteria over fungi under drought with implications for soil functioning.

KW - Ecosystem

KW - Soil

KW - Grassland

KW - Soil Microbiology

KW - Conservation of Natural Resources

KW - Droughts

KW - Bacteria/genetics

KW - Microbiota

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-023-43864-1

DO - 10.1038/s41467-023-43864-1

M3 - Article

C2 - 38167688

VL - 15

SP - 29

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

SN - 2041-1723

IS - 1

ER -