SG: Impacts of Long-Term Warming on Plant and Microbial Control of Soil Carbon Cycling

土壤中的碳(C)是其他陆地来源的两倍。这种地下的碳主要由植物产生，并被土壤微生物降解。植物输入和微生物降解的平衡决定了有多少碳储存在地下，而不是释放到大气中。因此，在一个不断变化的世界中，植物-微生物的相互作用可能是减少碳排放到大气中的关键。目前尚不清楚土壤中储存了多少碳，而释放到大气中的碳有多少是由环境控制的。这项研究利用美国国家科学基金会资助的基础设施，导致了30年的持续变暖，以了解温度如何影响植物和微生物，以及它们所调节的长期土壤碳周转。该项目将为一名实验室技术员和一名职业生涯初期的助理教授提供培训机会，两人均为女性。此外，这项研究将被整合到K-12“生物学在盒子里”计划中，以创建一个关于地下植物-微生物相互作用的模块。该项目具有全球重要性，因为地球上的生态系统正在出现气温上升。这项研究将加强全球范围内生态系统响应的生态预测和预测模型。微生物和生态系统生态学家的目标是将植物和微生物群落组成和生理的变化与随后生态系统功能的变化联系起来，如碳和养分循环。了解全球变化下植物和微生物群落的长期印记以及相关的土壤碳循环对于预测未来全球土壤碳储量至关重要。通过将土壤碳库和通量的生态系统水平测量与植物生理、丰度和特征以及微生物丰度、组成和功能的同步测量相结合，在持续时间最长的土壤变暖实验中，该项目将收集最全面的数据集之一，将全球变化下植物和微生物对土壤碳储存的影响联系起来。此外，这项研究将使用植物和微生物化学指纹的估计来检测它们对土壤碳库和寿命的影响，以应对土壤深处的变暖。这些数据对于预测未来气候变暖的土壤碳储量是必要的。如果微生物群落适应或调整其遗传库或功能基因表达速率在长期变暖下，那么对微生物C循环响应变暖的短期观察不足以对土壤C储量进行正向预测。因此，基于微生物对气候变暖的短期(5-10年)反应的未来土壤碳储量的模型预测可能会预测比实际可能发生的更大的碳损失。只有了解控制土壤碳循环的机制，我们才能在未来做出准确的基于过程的陆地碳通量生态系统模型。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Soils contain twice as much carbon (C) as other terrestrial sources. This subterranean C is mostly generated by plants and degraded by soil-dwelling microorganisms. The balance of plant input and microbial degradation determines how much C is stored below-ground versus released to the atmosphere. Plant-microbe interactions may therefore hold the key to mitigating C release into the atmosphere in a changing world. The environmental controls over how much C is stored in soil versus released to the atmosphere are unknown. This research leverages NSF-funded infrastructure that induced 30 years of continuous warming to understand how temperature affects plants and microorganisms, and the long-term soil C turnover that they mediate. The project will provide training opportunities for a laboratory technician as well as an early-career assistant professor, both female. In addition, the research will be integrated into the K-12 "Biology in a Box" program to create a module on below-ground plant-microbe interactions. The project has global importance as rising temperatures occur in ecosystems on earth. This research will enhance ecological forecasts and predictive models of ecosystem response at the global scale.Microbial and ecosystem ecologists aim to connect shifts in plant and microbial community composition and physiology to subsequent changes in ecosystem functions such as C and nutrient cycling. Understanding long-term imprints of plant and microbial communities and associated soil C cycling under global change is paramount for predicting future global soil C stocks. By combining ecosystem-level measurements of soil C pools and fluxes with simultaneous measurements of plant physiology, abundance, and traits as well as microbial abundance, composition, and function in the longest continuously running soil warming experiment, this project will collect one of the most comprehensive data sets linking plant and microbial influence on soil C storage under global change. In addition, this research will use estimates of plant and microbial chemical fingerprints to detect their impacts on soil C pools and longevity in response to warming across soil depths. These data are necessary to project future soil C storage in a warmer climate. If microbial communities acclimate or adapt their genetic repertoire or functional gene expression rates under long-term warming, then short-term observations of microbial C cycling in response to warming are inadequate for forward projections of soil C stocks. Therefore, model projections of future soil C stocks that are predicated on short-term (5-10 year) microbial responses to warming likely predict larger C losses than may actually occur. Only by understanding the mechanisms controlling soil C cycling can we make accurate process-based ecosystem models of terrestrial C fluxes in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.