Journal article
Long-term effects of elevated CO2 on carbon and nitrogen functional capacity of microbial communities in three contrasting soils
Clayton R Butterly, Lori A Phillips, Jennifer L Wiltshire, Ashley E Franks, Roger D Armstrong, Deli Chen, Pauline M Mele, Caixian Tang
SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY | PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | Published : 2016
Abstract
Elevated atmospheric CO2 (eCO2) affects soil-plant systems by stimulating plant growth, rhizosphere processes and altering the amount and quality of organic matter inputs. This study examined whether these plant-mediated processes indirectly influence the structure and function of soil microbial communities and soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling. Surface soils (0–5 and 5–10 cm) of Calcarosol, Chromosol and Vertosol were sampled after 5 years' exposure to either ambient CO2 (aCO2; 390 ppm) or eCO2 (550 ppm) using free-air CO2 enrichment (SoilFACE). Changes in microbial community structure were not detected using automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analyses (ARISA). However, quantitati..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by Australian Research Council Linkage Project
Funding Acknowledgements
This research was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP100200757), and was conducted at the SoiIFACE facility of the Victorian State Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR), Victoria at Horsham. We are grateful to Helena Kozlowski who worked on this project as part of her Honours project. The SoilFACE facility is part of The Australian Grains Free Air CO<INF>2</INF> Enrichment (AGFACE) facility, which is jointly operated by The University of Melbourne and DEDJTR with funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and the Australian Government Department of Agriculture. We thank the SoiIFACE technical team for managing the field experiment and Mahabubur Mollah for the FACE infrastructure.