Effects of climate warming and elevated CO2 on autotrophic nitrification and nitrifiers in dryland ecosystems

Abstract

Global climate change is predicted to enhance atmospheric temperature and CO2, with important consequences on biogeochemical nitrogen cycling in dryland ecosystems, which are highly vulnerable and characterized by extremely low nutrient availability. Belowground nitrification processes, predominantly mediated by ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB), are central to plant nitrogen availability and soil N2O emissions, but their responses to future climatic scenarios in drylands remain largely unknown. Here we investigated the impact of factorial combinations of elevated CO2 (+200 ppm) and elevated temperature (+3 °C) on dynamics of ammonia oxidizers and nitrification in three dryl..