Ectomycorrhizal fungi slow soil carbon cycling

Respiration of soil organic carbon is one of the largest fluxes of CO2 on earth. Understanding the processes that regulate soil respiration is critical for predicting future climate. Recent work has suggested that soil carbon respiration may be reduced by competition for nitrogen between symbiotic e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2016-08, Vol.19 (8), p.937-947
Main Authors: Averill, Colin, Hawkes, Christine V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biogeochemistry
Biomass
Carbon
Carbon - chemistry
Carbon Cycle - physiology
Climate change
Competition
ecosystem ecology
Ecosystems
Enzymes - metabolism
Forests
Fungi - metabolism
Greenhouse gases
Mycorrhizae
mycorrhizal fungi
Nitrogen
Soil - chemistry
soil carbon
soil ecology
soil nitrogen
Soils
Tsuga - microbiology
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Summary:Respiration of soil organic carbon is one of the largest fluxes of CO2 on earth. Understanding the processes that regulate soil respiration is critical for predicting future climate. Recent work has suggested that soil carbon respiration may be reduced by competition for nitrogen between symbiotic ectomycorrhizal fungi that associate with plant roots and free‐living microbial decomposers, which is consistent with increased soil carbon storage in ectomycorrhizal ecosystems globally. However, experimental tests of the mycorrhizal competition hypothesis are lacking. Here we show that ectomycorrhizal roots and hyphae decrease soil carbon respiration rates by up to 67% under field conditions in two separate field exclusion experiments, and this likely occurs via competition for soil nitrogen, an effect larger than 2 °C soil warming. These findings support mycorrhizal competition for nitrogen as an independent driver of soil carbon balance and demonstrate the need to understand microbial community interactions to predict ecosystem feedbacks to global climate.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.12631