Challenging the paradigm for plant-microbial resource partitioning in Antarctic ecosystems

南极是研究生态系统对气候变化反应的独特重要的“自然实验室”，正确理解在那里观察到的生物变化是至关重要的。它的独特之处在于其生态系统的简单性，表现出有限的物种多样性和食物链复杂性，以及环境变暖，其变化速度大约是温带地区的两倍。这项拟议的研究将开发新的实验和模拟技术，以找出特定形态的氮在南极土壤中的重要性。此外，我们还想弄清楚这些形式的有机氮是否可供微生物和植物利用，以及全球变暖是否会改变南极土壤的氮素动态。我们推测，我们的研究可能会为南极大陆维管植物种群最近的扩张提供一个解释。这项工作直接支持了与极地地区气候变化和生物多样性有关的政策。这项工作也与世界各地许多其他低投入生态系统(如北方森林、北极冻土带、热带雨林)极为相关。

The Antarctic is a uniquely important 'natural laboratory' for examining ecosystem responses to climate change, and it is vital that the biological changes being observed there are properly understood. Its uniqueness comes from a combination of the simplicity of its ecosystems, which exhibit restricted species diversity and food chain complexity, with environmental warming which is occurring at approximately twice the rate of change in temperate regions. The proposed research will develop novel experimental and modelling techniques to find out the importance in Antarctic soils of specific forms of nitrogen. In addition, we want to find out whether these forms of organic nitrogen are available to microbes and plants, and whether global warming will alter the nitrogen dynamics of Antarctic soils. We hypothesize that our research may offer an explanation for recent expansions in vascular plant populations on the Antarctic continent. The work directly underpins policy relating to climate change and biodiversity in polar regions. The work is also extremely relevant to many other low-input ecosystems around the world (e.g. boreal forest, Arctic tundra, tropical rainforest).