Impacts of climate-driven evolution on plant-soil interactions and ecosystem functioning

在全球范围内，我们依靠草原来支持生物多样性，确保农业生产力，提供休闲场所，并提供广泛的其他宝贵的生态系统服务;例如，英国乳制品行业依赖于草原，每年价值约42.7亿英镑。与此同时，草原是变化最大、保护最少的生物群落之一，将不可避免地受到气候变化的直接影响：变暖、干旱、洪水。或者是通过进化，环境的变化选择了那些基因编码了有利特征的个体，或通过生理学或生长模式的可逆（“可塑性”）变化。只有进化才能带来持久的适应性变化。因此，进化有可能缓冲人口对气候变化的不利影响。然而，进化变化对生态系统内共存物种和重要生态系统功能（如养分循环）的更广泛影响仍未得到解决。例如，“草原”似乎只是由植物组成，但在地表之下，有一个繁荣的微生物群落（细菌和真菌）与植物相互作用，影响植被的多样性和生产力，植物营养，甚至进化。由于其快速的世代时间和庞大的种群，这些微生物在气候变化等压力下迅速进化。因此，要了解气候驱动的影响，在草原，它是必不可少的，以整合的影响，发生在地上和地下的进化和生态过程。我们的研究将解决这些紧迫的问题，把气候驱动的进化变化在适当的生态环境。二十多年来，我们将巴克斯顿附近的英国天然草原暴露在模拟气候变化（变暖，降雨量增加和干旱）中。我们发表的和初步的研究表明，模拟气候变化已经改变了植物和微生物群落，并推动了植物内部的进化变化。基于这些先前的研究结果，我们的总体目标是利用巴克斯顿气候变化实验来确定地上和地下社区如何在气候变化期间共同进化并相互作用，以塑造生态系统过程。在这样做的过程中，我们的目标是了解草原提供的服务的变化，并提供预测和管理这些变化的方法。我们设计了一套有凝聚力的实验，以研究从基因到生态系统响应的关键问题，使用实验室微观世界，生长室实验和现场操作。三年内，我们将：i）检查两个生态上重要的微生物物种从现场，以确定如何长期气候变化处理驱动进化; ii）使用微观世界，包括微生物和植物，以了解微生物的适应如何影响植物的健身和生态系统功能; iii）确定如何在植物的进化变化，反过来，改变土壤中的微生物物种。我们将使用广泛的技术来实现这些目标，从基因组测序，以确定土壤微生物进化变化的遗传基础，到呼吸测量，以了解进化如何改变生态系统“呼吸”的方式。我们的研究将提供一个独特的，进化的观点，植物和土壤生物如何共同应对气候变化，并在生态系统层面的过程中产生的变化。

Globally, we depend on grasslands to support biodiversity, ensure agricultural productivity, offer recreational areas, and provide a wide range of other valuable ecosystem services; e.g. the UK dairy industry depends on grasslands and is worth ~£4.27 billion per annum. At the same time, grasslands are among the most altered and least protected biomes, and will inevitably be subjected to the imminent effects of climate changes: warming, drought, flooding.Organisms within grasslands may ultimately cope with climate change by adapting; either through evolution, where environmental change selects for individuals whose genes encode advantageous characteristics, or by reversible ("plastic") changes in physiology or growth pattern. Only evolution leads to lasting adaptive change. Thus, evolution has the potential to buffer populations against the adverse effects of climate change. However, the wider effects of evolutionary change, on coexisting species within ecosystems, and on important ecosystem functions, such as nutrient cycling, remain unresolved. "Grasslands", for instance, may seem to be composed of just plants, but beneath the surface there is a thriving microbial community (bacteria and fungi) that interacts with plants to influence the diversity and productivity of the vegetation, plant nutrition, and even evolution. With their rapid generation times and massive populations, these microbes evolve rapidly under pressures such as climate change. Consequently, to understand climate-driven impacts in grasslands, it is essential to integrate the effects of evolutionary and ecological processes that occur both above-, and belowground.Our research will address these pressing issues, by placing climate-driven evolutionary change in an appropriate ecological context. For over two decades, we have exposed a natural UK grassland near Buxton to simulated climate change (warming, increased rainfall, and drought). Our published and preliminary research shows that simulated climate change has already altered plant and microbial communities and has driven evolutionary change within plants. Building on these previous findings, our overarching goal is to use the Buxton climate change experiment to determine how above- and belowground communities co-evolve, and interact with each other during climate change, to shape ecosystem processes. In doing so, we aim to understand changes in the services that grasslands provide, and offer the means to predict and manage these changes. We have designed a cohesive set of experiments to examine key issues at levels ranging from genes to ecosystem responses, using laboratory microcosms, growth-chamber experiments, and field manipulations. Over three years, we will: i) examine two ecologically important microbe species from the field site to determine how long-term climate change treatments drive evolution; ii) use microcosms that include microbes and plants to understand how microbial adaptation affects plant fitness and ecosystem function; iii) determine how evolutionary change in plants, in turn, alters microbial species in the soil. We will use a wide range of techniques to reach these goals, from genome sequencing, to identify the genetic basis of evolutionary change in soil microbes, to respiration measurements, to understand how evolution changes the way ecosystems "breathe". Our research will provide a unique, evolutionary view of how plants and soil organisms respond together to climate change, and of resulting shifts in ecosystem-level processes.