Microbial functional attributes, rather than taxonomic attributes, drive top soil respiration, nitrification and denitrification processes

Abstract

We lack empirical evidence for the relative importance of microbial functional attributes vs taxonomic attributes in regulating specified soil processes related to carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling, which has hindered our ability to predict the responses of ecosystem multifunctionality to environmental changes. Here, we collected soil samples from a long-term experimental field with eight inorganic and organic fertilization treatments and evaluated the linkage between microbial functional attributes (abundance of functional genes), taxonomic attributes (microbial taxonomic composition), and soil processes including soil respiration, denitrification and nitrification. Long-term fertilizatio..