The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) is a central issue
in soil and microbial ecology. To date, most belowground BEF studies focus on the
diversity of microbes analyzed by barcoding on total DNA, which targets both active and
inactive microbes. This approach creates a bias as it mixes the part of the microbiome
currently steering processes that provide actual ecosystem functions with the part not
directly involved. Using experimental extensive grasslands under current and future
climate, we used the bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) immunocapture technique combined
with pair-end Illumina sequencing to characterize both total and active microbiomes
(including both bacteria and fungi) in the rhizosphere of Trifolium pratense. Rhizosphere
function was assessed by measuring the activity of three microbial extracellular enzymes
(β-glucosidase, N-acetyl-glucosaminidase, and acid phosphatase), which play central
roles in the C, N, and P acquisition. We showed that the richness of overall and specific
functional groups of active microbes in rhizosphere soil significantly correlated with the
measured enzyme activities, while total microbial richness did not. Active microbes of
the rhizosphere represented 42.8 and 32.1% of the total bacterial and fungal taxa,
respectively, and were taxonomically and functionally diverse. Nitrogen fixing bacteria
were highly active in this system with 71% of the total operational taxonomic units (OTUs)
assigned to this group detected as active. We found the total and active microbiomes to
display different responses to variations in soil physicochemical factors in the grassland,
but with some degree of resistance to a manipulation mimicking future climate. Our
findings provide critical insights into the role of active microbes in defining soil ecosystem
functions in a grassland ecosystem. We demonstrate that the relationship between
biodiversity-ecosystem functioning in soil may be stronger than previously thought.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:84325 |
| Date | 27 March 2023 |
| Creators | Wahdan, Sara Fareed Mohamed, Heintz-Buschart, Anna, Sansupa, Chakriya, Tanunchai, Benjawan, Wu, Yu-Ting, Schädler, Martin, Noll, Matthias, Purahong, Witoon, Buscot, François |
| Publisher | Frontiers Research Foundation |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 1664-302X, 629169 |
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