H2020 CLIMIFUN Project: Climatic and Temporal Control of Microbial Diversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Perspectives of a New Conceptual Model
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2016 -2019
- Assigned Budget 239.191,2 €
- Scope Europeo
- Autonomous community Madrid, Comunidad de
- Main source of financing Horizon 2020
- Project website https://mdelgado-baquerizo.weebly.com/marie-curie-project.html
CLIMIFUN has resulted in the first global atlas of dominant bacterial taxa. Here, we show that only 2% of bacterial phylotypes (~500 phylotypes) consistently accounted for nearly half of soil bacterial communities worldwide. Despite the overwhelming diversity of bacterial communities, relatively few bacterial taxa are abundant in soils worldwide. We grouped these dominant taxa into ecological clusters to construct the first global atlas of soil bacterial taxa, published in Science in January (Delgado-Baquerizo et al. 2018. Ciencia 359: 320–325).
An important advance of this study is that habitat preferences are not predictable solely from phylum-level identity, given that all ecological groups included phylotypes from multiple phyla. By reducing the number of phylotypes targeted by future studies from tens of thousands to a few hundred, our study paves the way for a more predictive understanding of soil bacterial communities, which is critical for accurately predicting the ecological consequences of ongoing global environmental change. CLIMIFUN has investigated changes in soil biodiversity during ecosystem development (PNAS, 2019).
Changes in belowground biodiversity during pedogenesis followed two main patterns. In lower productivity ecosystems (drier and cooler), increases in belowground biodiversity followed increases in vegetation cover. In more productive ecosystems (wetter and warmer), increased acidification during pedogenesis was associated with decreased belowground biodiversity. Changes in the diversity of bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates with pedogenesis were strongly and positively correlated globally, highlighting that belowground biodiversity shares similar ecological drivers as soils and ecosystems develop. Together, our findings provide evidence that ecological patterns in belowground biodiversity are predictable across major globally distributed ecosystem types and suggest that changes in vegetation cover and soil acidification during ecosystem development are associated with changes in belowground biodiversity over centuries to millennia. CLIMIFUN has also provided the first global assessment of the environmental factors controlling the priming effect (Nature Communications, 2019). Our work showed that the magnitude of the apparent positive priming effect (increased CO2 release through accelerated microbial biomass turnover) was negatively associated with SOC content and microbial respiration rates.
Our statistical model suggests that apparent priming effects tend to be negative at more mesic sites associated with higher SOC contents. In contrast, a single input of labile C causes positive apparent priming effects in more arid locations with low SOC contents. Our results provide strong evidence that SOC content plays a critical role in regulating apparent priming effects, with important implications for improving C cycling models under global change scenarios. CLIMIFUN also investigated the importance of microbial communities as predictors of multifunctional resilience (C, N, and P cycling) to climate change and N fertilization. This work was published in Ecology Letters in September 2017 (Delgado-Baquerizo et al. 2017. Ecology Letters 20: 1295–1305).
Despite the importance of soil microbial communities for ecosystem functioning and human well-being, little is known about the mechanisms that control the composition and diversity of these communities, and the role of their attributes in providing multiple ecosystem functions and services, such as nutrient cycling and decomposition (i.e., multifunctionality).
Numerous studies have identified climate, ecosystem development stage, and soil characteristics as major drivers of plant and animal diversity. However, much less is known about the interactive effects of climate, soil properties, and time in controlling microbial diversity and multifunctionality during ecosystem succession. This lack of knowledge hampers our ability to predict changes in microbial communities and their consequences for ecosystem functioning under climate change, and limits the inclusion of soil microbes in global biogeochemical models.
The primary research objective of this action is to delve deeper into the patterns and mechanisms that drive soil microbial diversity and multifunctionality in changing environments. We will use a novel conceptual framework that combines long-term chronosequences, climate change experiments, and structural equation modeling to quantitatively assess the role of time, climate, and multiple soil drivers in controlling microbial diversity and multifunctionality.
The research described in this proposal includes a range of cutting-edge biochemical, molecular, and genomic methods for analyzing microbial communities and their multifunctionality, ensuring the maximum utility and impact of our results. Collectively, CLIMIFUN will reveal the factors controlling soil microbial diversity and the multiple functions linked to plant production and nutrient cycling in a changing environment. This work, therefore, will address a key knowledge gap to support the increasing global demand for food and fiber in the coming decades and constitutes a research priority for H2020.
Many studies have identified climate, ecosystem development stage, and soil characteristics as major drivers of plant and animal diversity. However, much less is known about the interactive effects of climate, soil properties, and time in controlling microbial diversity and multifunctionality during ecosystem succession. This lack of scientific knowledge hampers scientists' ability to predict microbial community shifts and their consequences for ecosystem functioning under climate change. It also limits the inclusion of soil microbes in global biogeochemical models.
The CLIMIFUN project addressed this knowledge gap by investigating the global patterns and mechanisms that drive soil microbial diversity and ecosystem processes in changing environments. “By conducting global experiments and field studies, we have increased our understanding of the main global patterns and mechanisms in global biomes and during soil formation,” says Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow. An international effort. Scientists from more than 30 institutions conducted a global survey, collecting field data from nine countries and six continents. “The biggest challenge was to develop standardized protocols for vegetation surveys and studies of diverse environments, such as arid ecosystems and tropical forests, that would be easy to follow by all types of researchers, from field ecologists to molecular biologists,” explains Delgado-Baquerizo. The groundbreaking results revealed the fate of soil biodiversity over millions of years of ecosystem development and supported the First Global Atlas of Soil Biodiversity (opens in a new window). "Given that the role of time in controlling the distribution of soil organisms remains largely unexplored, especially at a global scale, CLIMIFUN constitutes a pioneering study in this area," says Delgado-Baquerizo.
The project also provides new evidence that soil biodiversity controls the responses of ecosystem functions to the drivers of global change (opens in a new window). Furthermore, it identified, for the first time, the role of past climates in controlling the distribution of soil biodiversity at a global scale (opens in a new window). Furthermore, CLIMIFUN identified those locations on Earth where unknown taxa are expected to be found and characterized in the coming years. CLIMIFUN provides vital information on the natural history of the biodiversity of soil bacteria, fungi, protists, and invertebrates in terrestrial ecosystems of the world's major biomes. According to Delgado-Baquerizo: "Our work showed that, as soil develops, changes in soil biodiversity are driven by changes in vegetation cover and acidification over millennia." The initiative also provided fundamental insight into the role of soil biodiversity in supporting ecosystem functioning, from fertility to plant production, and in driving the responses of ecosystem functions to global change. It also quantified the importance of ecological memory in controlling ecosystem functions and soil biodiversity globally.
The knowledge derived from CLIMIFUN will benefit scientists, conservationists, land managers, teachers, and policymakers. "The world atlas, for example, provides basic information for teaching the global distribution of soil organisms, as has been done with plants for decades. It also includes information on locations that need to be protected to maintain soil biodiversity worldwide. Furthermore, it poses important new challenges and lines of research for researchers seeking to identify the dominant taxa in soils around the world," Delgado-Baquerizo concludes.
- UNIVERSIDAD REY JUAN CARLOS
- REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
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