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Changes in soil microbial communities induced by warming and N deposition accelerate the CO2 emissions of coarse woody debris

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Abstract

Warming and nitrogen (N) deposition are two important drivers of global climate changes. Coarse woody debris (CWD) contains a large proportion of the carbon (C) in the total global C pool. The composition of soil microbial communities and environmental changes (i.e., N deposition and warming) are the key drivers of CWD decomposition, but the interactive impact between N deposition and warming on the composition of soil microbial communities and CWD decomposition is still unclear. In a laboratory experiment, we study and simulate respiration during decomposition of the CWD (C98) of Cryptomeria japonica (CR) and Platycarya strobilacea (PL) in response to warming and N deposition over 98 days. Resuts show that either warming or N addition significantly accelerated the C98 of the two tree species by altering the soil microbial community (bacterial:fungi and G+:G–). The combined treatment (warming + N) resulted in a decomposition effect equal to the sum of the individual effects. In addition, the species composition of bacteria and fungi was obviously affected by warming. However, N deposition had a remarkable influence on G+:G–. Our results indicated that N deposition and warming will observably alter the composition and growth of the microbial community and thus work synergistically to accelerate CWD decomposition in forest ecosystems. We also present evidence that N deposition and warming influenced the composition and balance of soil microbial communities and biogeochemical cycling of forest ecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. G. Geoff Wang of Clemson University for reviewing an early draft of this manuscript and for many helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript. We also thank the anonymous reviewers, the Chief Editor and Handling Editor of the journal for their suggestions on improving this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Silviculture, Co-Innovation Center of Jiangxi Typical Trees Cultivation and Utilization, College of Forestry, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Zhimin Rd. 1101, Nanchang, 330045, People’s Republic of China

    Hankun Wang, Chunsheng Wu, Junping Liu, Qi Chen, Chao Li & Yuanqiu Liu

  2. School of Hydraulic and Ecological Engineering, Nanchang Institute of Technology, Nanchang, 330099, People’s Republic of China

    Chunsheng Wu & Chunjie Shu

  3. Lushan Nature Reserve of Jiangxi (Lushan Mountain National Forest Ecological Station), Henan Rd. 600, Jiujiang, 332900, People’s Republic of China

    Yi Zhang & Yuanqiu Liu

  4. College of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, South China Agricultural University, Wushan Rd. 483, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, 510642, People’s Republic of China

    Yuanqiu Liu

  5. College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, People’s Republic of China

    Hankun Wang

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  1. Hankun Wang
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Contributions

Data curation, HW, CL, QC, and ZY; Formal analysis, HW and CW; Investigation, HW, CW, CL, QC, CS, and YZ; Writing—original draft, CW, HW, QM and YL; Writing—review and editing, HW, JL, CW, and YL.

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Correspondence to Yuanqiu Liu.

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Project funding: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (3196140162).

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Corresponding editor: Tao Xu

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Wang, H., Wu, C., Liu, J. et al. Changes in soil microbial communities induced by warming and N deposition accelerate the CO2 emissions of coarse woody debris. J. For. Res. 34, 1051–1063 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-022-01544-8

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