Soil microbial communities with greater investment in resource acquisition have lower growth yield

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

  • Ashish A. Malik
  • Jeremy Puissant
  • Tim Goodall
  • Steven D. Allison
  • Robert I. Griffiths
    Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Bangor
Resource acquisition and growth yield are fundamental microbial traits that affect biogeochemical processes and have consequences for ecosystem functioning. However, there is a lack of empirical observations linking these traits. Using a landscape-scale survey of temperate near-neutral pH soils, we show tradeoffs in key community-level parameters linked to these traits. Increased investment into extracellular enzymes estimated using specific potential enzyme activity was associated with reduced growth yield obtained using carbon use efficiency measures from stable isotope tracing. Reduction in growth yield was linked more to carbon than nitrogen acquisition highlighting smaller stoichiometric than energetic constraints on community metabolism in examined soils.

Keywords

  • Carbon, Microbial communities, Enzymes, Carbon use efficiency, Nitrogen, Traits
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)36-39
Number of pages4
JournalSoil Biology and Biochemistry
Volume132
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2019
Externally publishedYes
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