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Plant Communities, Soil Microorganisms, and Soil Carbon Cycling: Does Altering the World Belowground Matter to Ecosystem Functioning?

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Abstract

Soil microorganisms mediate many critical ecosystem processes. Little is known, however, about the factors that determine soil microbial community composition, and whether microbial community composition influences process rates. Here, we investigated whether aboveground plant diversity affects soil microbial community composition, and whether differences in microbial communities in turn affect ecosystem process rates. Using an experimental system at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, we found that plant diversity (plots contained 1, 3, 5, or > 25 plant species) had a significant effect on microbial community composition (as determined by phospholipid fatty acid analysis). The different microbial communities had significantly different respiration responses to 24 labile carbon compounds. We then tested whether these differences in microbial composition and catabolic capabilities were indicative of the ability of distinct microbial communities to decompose different types of litter in a fully factorial laboratory litter transplant experiment. Both microbial biomass and microbial community composition appeared to play a role in litter decomposition rates. Our work suggests, however, that the more important mechanism through which changes in plant diversity affect soil microbial communities and their carbon cycling activities may be through alterations in their abundance rather than their community composition.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jack Ewel for his generosity in sharing his field sites, staff, equipment, knowledge, and guidance throughout this project. We also thank Brendan Bohannan and Peter Vitousek for aiding the direction of the research, Alex Reich and Ricardo Bedoya for field and logistical support, and the Huertos crew for help in the field. Thanks also to Steven Allison, Teri Balser, Peter Jewett, Ryan King, Ian Monroe, Zenobia Moore, and Martha Roberts for help with laboratory and statistical analyses. The manuscript greatly benefited from suggestions made by Kathleen Boomer, Aimee Classen, Claire Horner-Devine, Amy Luers, Pat Megonigal, Stephen Porder, and Taylor Ricketts. The National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Program, NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant No. 0205959, NSF awards DEB 90318403 and DEB 9623969, the Stanford University School of Earth Sciences McGee Fund, and a grant from the A. W. Mellon Foundation to Pamela Matson supported this research.

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  1. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, P.O. Box 28, Edgewater, Maryland, 21037, USA

    Karen M. Carney

  2. Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

    Pamela A. Matson

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  1. Karen M. Carney
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Correspondence to Karen M. Carney.

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Carney, K.M., Matson, P.A. Plant Communities, Soil Microorganisms, and Soil Carbon Cycling: Does Altering the World Belowground Matter to Ecosystem Functioning?. Ecosystems 8, 928–940 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-005-0047-0

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