Microbial genomic traits at the community level drive heterotrophic respiration in forest soils

Abstract

Soil microbial heterotrophic respiration (HR), a crucial carbon flux to the atmosphere, is closely related to microbial community traits. However, community level microbial traits associated with such process remain understudied across forest biomes. Here, we accessed microbial traits influence on HR across a forest climatic gradient in China. We found that microbial HR showed distinct differentiation along an environmental gradient, which were highest in temperate forest Maoer mountain (1067.95 mg C kg^‒1) and lowest in tropical forest Xishuangbanna (178.83 mg C kg^‒1). At the community level, microbial HR was tightly related to microbial biomass and composition, and genomic traits. Notably, the HR was positively correlated with guanine-cytosine base pair content, but negatively correlated to the average 16S rRNA copy number and the average genome size of microbes (P < 0.05). Moreover, among the forests, soil organic carbon and alkyl-C/O-alkyl-C ratio were the crucial variables in explaining HR, which attributed to their effects on microbial composition and genomic traits. Overall, microbial genomic traits at the community level play an important role in understanding HR. Our findings elucidate new evidence on the mechanisms driving soil carbon fluxes and enhance predictions of soil carbon responses to future climatic change.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

microbial genomic traits / heterotrophic respiration / forests / soils

Highlight

	● Microbial heterotrophic respiration varied among different forest sites.
	● Microbial heterotrophic respiration was tightly related to genomic traits.
	● Carbon quality affected the heterotrophic respiration through regulating genomic traits.

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