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Carbon and nitrogen cycling in Yedoma permafrost controlled by microbial functional limitations
- Source :
- Nature Geoscience, 13(12), 794-798. Nature Publishing Group, Nature Geoscience, Nature Geoscience, Nature Publishing Group, 2020, 13 (12), pp.794-798. ⟨10.1038/s41561-020-00662-4⟩, Monteux, S, Keuper, F, Fontaine, S, Gavazov, K, Hallin, S, Juhanson, J, Krab, E J, Revaillot, S, Verbruggen, E, Walz, J, Weedon, J T & Dorrepaal, E 2020, ' Carbon and nitrogen cycling in Yedoma permafrost controlled by microbial functional limitations ', Nature Geoscience, vol. 13, no. 12, pp. 794-798 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-00662-4, Nature geoscience
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Warming-induced microbial decomposition of organic matter in permafrost soils constitutes a climate-change feedback of uncertain magnitude. While physicochemical constraints on soil functioning are relatively well understood, the constraints attributable to microbial community composition remain unclear. Here we show that biogeochemical processes in permafrost can be impaired by missing functions in the microbial community-functional limitations-probably due to environmental filtering of the microbial community over millennia-long freezing. We inoculated Yedoma permafrost with a functionally diverse exogenous microbial community to test this mechanism by introducing potentially missing microbial functions. This initiated nitrification activity and increased CO2 production by 38% over 161 days. The changes in soil functioning were strongly associated with an altered microbial community composition, rather than with changes in soil chemistry or microbial biomass. The present permafrost microbial community composition thus constrains carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical processes, but microbial colonization, likely to occur upon permafrost thaw in situ, can alleviate such functional limitations. Accounting for functional limitations and their alleviation could strongly increase our estimate of the vulnerability of permafrost soil organic matter to decomposition and the resulting global climate feedback. Carbon dioxide emissions from permafrost thaw are substantially enhanced by relieving microbial functional limitations, according to incubation experiments on Yedoma permafrost.
- Subjects :
- Biogeochemical cycle
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
[SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes
Yedoma
010502 geochemistry & geophysics
Permafrost
01 natural sciences
diversity
thawing permafrost
soil organic-matter
SDG 13 - Climate Action
r package
Organic matter
Nitrogen cycle
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
2. Zero hunger
chemistry.chemical_classification
biomass
Physics
Soil organic matter
Soil chemistry
temperature
15. Life on land
fatty-acids
sensitivity
communities
Microbial population biology
chemistry
13. Climate action
Environmental chemistry
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Environmental science
reveals
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 17520894
- Volume :
- 13
- Issue :
- 12
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Geoscience
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1690659d57591e5671a72a27e057429d