Molecular Soil Biology 2024, Vol.15, No.2, 71-73 http://bioscipublisher.com/index.php/msb 71 Scientific Review Open Access Influencing Factors and Consequences: The Effect of Root System on Microbial Community Dynamics under Soil Warming Francis Burke Molecular Soil Biology, BioSci Publisher, Richmond, BC, V7A 4Z5, Canada Corresponding author email: Francis.burke@sophiapublisher.com Molecular Soil Biology, 2024, Vol.15, No.2 doi: 10.5376/msb.2024.15.0008 Received: 24 Feb., 2024 Accepted: 26 Mar., 2024 Published: 05 Apr., 2024 Copyright © 2024 Burke, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Burke F., 2024, Influencing factors and consequences: the effect of root system on microbial community dynamics under soil warming, Molecular Soil Biology, 15(2): 71-73 (doi: 10.5376/msb.2024.15.0008) The paper titled "Soil warming increases the number of growing bacterial taxa but not their growth rates" was published in the journal Science Advances on February 23, 2024, by authors Metze D., Schnecker J., de Charlan C.L.N., Bhattarai B., Verbruggen E., Ostonen I., Janssens I.A., Sigurdsson B.D., Hausmann B., Kaiser C., and Richter A., are from institutions such as the Center for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science at the University of Vienna, Austria, the Clinical Microbiology Department of the Experimental Medicine Department at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Larsenburg, Austria. The study investigated the effects of long-term soil warming on soil bacterial and archaeal communities in subarctic meadows through field experiments and quantitative stable isotope probe (qSIP) technology. The study found that although soil warming led to more bacterial species participating in growth, it did not significantly increase their average growth rate. This study provides new insights into the response mechanisms of soil microorganisms in the context of global warming. 1 Interpretation of Experimental Data The experiment mainly evaluates the growth dynamics of microbial communities by comparing the soil nucleic acid 18O labeling under different temperature treatments (control group and warming 6°C group). The key results include: significant losses of soil organic carbon and nitrogen, which are correlated with an increase in the growth rate of microbial communities; The warming treatment significantly increased the types of active bacteria, but the average growth rate of these bacteria did not increase. The study investigated the effects of root system presence and heating conditions on microbial growth by setting up different experimental treatments in a grassland in Iceland that has experienced natural warming from geothermal activity for over 50 years. The experimental results showed that under the condition of increasing temperature by 6℃, the soil carbon content decreased (Figure 1B), while the relative microbial community growth increased (Figure 1C). This indicates that warming may alter soil carbon cycling by affecting microbial activity, which in turn may affect soil carbon storage capacity. In addition, by using grids with different apertures to restrict or allow root growth, this study also attempts to analyze the potential effects of roots on microbial activity and soil carbon cycling. Figure 6 shows the activity levels of the top 15 microbial families based on the absorption ratio of 18O isotopes in both root and non root treatments under normal temperature and warming conditions. The heatmap reflects the contribution of each family to the overall microbial community growth, which is calculated based on the relative abundance and growth rate of the growing groups. Especially in rooted treatments, such as the Chitinophagaceae family, high growth contributions were observed under both temperature conditions, and there were significant differences compared to rootless treatments. This indicates that the presence of roots may promote the activity and growth of certain specific microbial families, which is particularly significant under warming conditions. In addition, the bubble chart displays the cumulative growth of all displayed families, providing an intuitive comparison of total growth.
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