Higher tree diversity increases soil microbial resistance to drought.

Commun Biol

Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), CNRS, UMR 5175, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul Valéry, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France.

Published: July 2020

AI Article Synopsis

  • Predicted droughts may affect soil microbes, but plant community diversity can influence their resilience.
  • Our study found that while drought reduces microbial activity, mixed tree species forests help microbes resist drought better than mono-specific ones.
  • These findings suggest that greater tree species diversity can promote stability in essential soil processes, which is important as drought events become more frequent.

Article Abstract

Predicted increases in drought frequency and severity may change soil microbial functioning. Microbial resistance and recovery to drought depend on plant community characteristics, among other factors, yet how changes in plant diversity modify microbial drought responses is uncertain. Here, we assessed how repeated drying-rewetting cycles affect soil microbial functioning and whether tree species diversity modifies these effects with a microcosm experiment using soils from different European forests. Our results show that microbial aerobic respiration and denitrification decline under drought but are similar in single and mixed tree species forests. However, microbial communities from mixed forests resist drought better than those from mono-specific forests. This positive tree species mixture effect is robust across forests differing in environmental conditions and species composition. Our data show that mixed forests mitigate drought effects on soil microbial processes, suggesting greater stability of biogeochemical cycling in mixed forests should drought frequency increase in the future.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7360603PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-1112-0DOI Listing

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