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The sensitivity of soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition in seasonally frozen soils, such as alpine ecosystems, to climate warming is a major uncertainty in global carbon cycling. Here we measure soil CO2 emission during four years (2018-2021) from the whole-soil warming experiment (4 °C for the top 1 m) in an alpine grassland ecosystem. We find that whole-soil warming stimulates total and SOC-derived CO2 efflux by 26% and 37%, respectively, but has a minor effect on root-derived CO2 efflux. Moreover, experimental warming only promotes total soil CO2 efflux by 7-8% on average in the meta-analysis across all grasslands or alpine grasslands globally (none of these experiments were whole-soil warming). We show that whole-soil warming has a much stronger effect on soil carbon emission in the alpine grassland ecosystem than what was reported in previous warming experiments, most of which only heat surface soils.

The paucity of investigations of carbon (C) dynamics through the soil profile with warming makes it challenging to evaluate the terrestrial C feedback to climate change. Soil microbes are important engines driving terrestrial biogeochemical cycles; their carbon use efficiency (CUE), defined as the proportion of metabolized organic C allocated to microbial biomass, is a key regulator controlling the fate of soil C. It has been theorized that microbial CUE should decline with warming; however, empirical evidence for this response is scarce, and data from deeper soils are particularly scarce. Here, based on soil samples from a whole-soil-profile warming experiment (0 to 1 m, +4 °C) and 18O tracing approach, we examined the vertical variation of microbial CUE and its response to ~3.3-y experimental warming in an alpine grassland on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Microbial CUE decreased with soil depth, a trend that was primarily controlled by soil C availability. However, warming had limited effects on microbial CUE regardless of soil depth. Similarly, warming had no significant effect on soil C availability, as characterized by extractable organic C, enzyme-based lignocellulose index, and lignin phenol-based ratios of vanillyls, syringyls, and cinnamyls. Collectively, our work suggests that short-term warming does not alter microbial CUE in either surface or deep soils, and emphasizes the regulatory role of soil C availability on microbial CUE.

Globally, soils store two to three times as much carbon as currently resides in the atmosphere, and it is critical to understand how soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and uptake will respond to ongoing climate change. In particular, the soil-to-atmosphere CO2 flux, commonly though imprecisely termed soil respiration (RS ), is one of the largest carbon fluxes in the Earth system. An increasing number of high-frequency RS measurements (typically, from an automated system with hourly sampling) have been made over the last two decades; an increasing number of methane measurements are being made with such systems as well. Such high frequency data are an invaluable resource for understanding GHG fluxes, but lack a central database or repository. Here we describe the lightweight, open-source COSORE (COntinuous SOil REspiration) database and software, that focuses on automated, continuous and long-term GHG flux datasets, and is intended to serve as a community resource for earth sciences, climate change syntheses and model evaluation. Contributed datasets are mapped to a single, consistent standard, with metadata on contributors, geographic location, measurement conditions and ancillary data. The design emphasizes the importance of reproducibility, scientific transparency and open access to data. While being oriented towards continuously measured RS , the database design accommodates other soil-atmosphere measurements (e.g. ecosystem respiration, chamber-measured net ecosystem exchange, methane fluxes) as well as experimental treatments (heterotrophic only, etc.). We give brief examples of the types of analyses possible using this new community resource and describe its accompanying R software package.

The intricate mechanisms controlling plant diversity and community composition are cornerstone of ecological understanding. Yet, the role of mycorrhizal symbiosis in influencing community composition has often been underestimated. Here, we use extensive species survey data from 1315 grassland sites in China to elucidate the influence of mycorrhizal symbiosis on plant phylogenetic diversity and community assembly. We show that increasing mycorrhizal symbiotic potential leads to greater phylogenetic dispersion within plant communities. Mycorrhizal species predominantly influence deterministic processes, suggesting a role in niche‐based community assembly. Conversely, non‐mycorrhizal species exert a stronger influence on stochastic processes, highlighting the importance of random events in shaping community structure. These results underscore the crucial but often hidden role of mycorrhizal symbiosis in driving plant community diversity and assembly. This study provides valuable insights into the mechanisms shaping ecological communities and the way for more informed conservation that acknowledges the complex interplay between symbiosis and community dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsoil is a large organic carbon reservoir, storing more than half of the total soil organic carbon (SOC) globally. Conventionally, subsoil is assumed to not be susceptible to climate change, but recent studies document that climate change could significantly alter subsoil carbon cycling. However, little is known about subsoil microbial responses to the interactive effects of climate warming and altered precipitation. Here, we investigated carbon cycling and associated microbial responses in both subsoil (30–40 cm) and topsoil (0–10 cm) in a Tibetan alpine grassland over 4 years of warming and altered precipitation. Compared to the unchanged topsoil carbon (β =.55, p =.587), subsoil carbon exhibited a stronger response to the interactive effect of warming and altered precipitation (β = 2.04, p =.021), that is, warming decreased subsoil carbon content by 28.20% under decreased precipitation while warming increased subsoil carbon content by 18.02% under increased precipitation.Furthermore, 512 metagenome‐assembled genomes (MAGs) were recovered, including representatives of phyla with poor genomic representation. Compared to only one changed topsoil MAG, 16 subsoil MAGs were significantly affected by altered precipitation, and 5 subsoil MAGs were significantly affected by the interactive effect of warming and precipitation. More than twice as many populations whose MAG abundances correlated significantly with the variations of carbon content, components and fluxes were observed in the subsoil than topsoil, suggesting their potential contribution in mediating subsoil carbon cycling. Collectively, our findings highlight the more sensitive responses of specific microbial lineages to the interactive effects of warming and altered precipitation in the subsoil than topsoil, and provide key information for predicting subsoil carbon cycling under future climate change scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil bacteria are key to ecosystem function and maintenance of soil fertility. Leveraging associations of current geographic distributions of bacteria with historic climate, we predict that soil bacterial diversity will increase across the majority (∼75%) of the Tibetan Plateau and northern North America if bacterial communities equilibrate with existing climatic conditions. This prediction is possible because the current distributions of soil bacteria have stronger correlations with climate from ∼50 years ago than with current climate. This lag is likely associated with the time it takes for soil properties to adjust to changes in climate. The predicted changes are location specific and differ across bacterial taxa, including some bacteria that are predicted to have reductions in their distributions. These findings illuminate the widespread potential of climate change to influence belowground diversity and the importance of considering bacterial communities when assessing climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. IMPORTANCE There have been many studies highlighting how plant and animal communities lag behind climate change, causing extinction and diversity debts that will slowly be paid as communities equilibrate. By virtue of their short generation times and dispersal abilities, soil bacteria might be expected to respond to climate change quickly and to be effectively in equilibrium with current climatic conditions. We found strong evidence to the contrary in Tibet and North America. These findings could significantly improve understanding of climate impacts on soil microbial communities.

Rapid climate change and intensified human activities have resulted in water table lowering (WTL) and enhanced nitrogen (N) deposition in Tibetan alpine wetlands. These changes may alter the magnitude and direction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, affecting the climate impact of these fragile ecosystems. We conducted a mesocosm experiment combined with a metagenomics approach (GeoChip 5.0) to elucidate the effects of WTL (-20 cm relative to control) and N deposition (30 kg N ha-1  yr-1 ) on carbon dioxide (CO2 ), methane (CH4 ) and nitrous oxide (N2 O) fluxes as well as the underlying mechanisms. Our results showed that WTL reduced CH4 emissions by 57.4% averaged over three growing seasons compared with no-WTL plots, but had no significant effect on net CO2 uptake or N2 O flux. N deposition increased net CO2 uptake by 25.2% in comparison with no-N deposition plots and turned the mesocosms from N2 O sinks to N2 O sources, but had little influence on CH4 emissions. The interactions between WTL and N deposition were not detected in all GHG emissions. As a result, WTL and N deposition both reduced the global warming potential (GWP) of growing season GHG budgets on a 100-year time horizon, but via different mechanisms. WTL reduced GWP from 337.3 to -480.1 g CO2 -eq m-2 mostly because of decreased CH4 emissions, while N deposition reduced GWP from 21.0 to -163.8 g CO2 -eq m-2 , mainly owing to increased net CO2 uptake. GeoChip analysis revealed that decreased CH4 production potential, rather than increased CH4 oxidation potential, may lead to the reduction in net CH4 emissions, and decreased nitrification potential and increased denitrification potential affected N2 O fluxes under WTL conditions. Our study highlights the importance of microbial mechanisms in regulating ecosystem-scale GHG responses to environmental changes.

Globally, grassland degradation is an acute ecological problem. In alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau, increased densities of various small mammals in degraded grassland are assumed to intensify the degradation process and these mammals are subject to lethal control. However, whether the negative impact of small mammals is solely a result of population size or also a result of activity and behavior has not been tested. In this study, we use plateau pika as a model to compare population size, core area of colony, and the number of burrow entrances and latrines between lightly and severely degraded grassland. We test whether the alleged contribution of pika to grassland degradation is a result of increased population size or increased burrowing activities of individuals in response to lower food abundance. We found that grassland degradation resulted in lower plant species richness, plant height, and biomass. Furthermore, the overall population size of pika was not significantly affected by location in lightly and severely degraded grassland. However, pika core areas in severely grassland degradation were significantly larger and had significantly higher densities of burrows and latrines. Our study provides convincing evidence that habitat‐induced changes in the behavior of small, burrowing mammals, such as pika, can exacerbate grassland degradation. This finding has significant implications for managing small mammals and restoring degraded grassland ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]