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H2020Individual fellowship2022–2025

ALSORES · The role of microbial and invertebrate activities in shaping Alpine Soil Respiration: current state and future scenarios

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2022-09-01 → 2025-08-31
EU contribution
€183,473
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF

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Results in brief

The role of microbial and invertebrate activities in shaping Alpine Soil Respiration: current state and future scenarios

Soil respiration (SR), i.e., the belowground production of CO2 in soil, is correlated with soil temperature and will thus intensify climate change. It is expected to change considerably and variably especially within the Alpine area. Main actors shaping heterotrophic soilrespiration (SRH) are microorganisms and invertebrates. Their interaction, however, and how both groups may influence each other, have not been investigated with respect to the resulting SR. The project addressed the challenge of understanding how microbial and invertebrate communities influence soil respiration in Alpine environments, particularly under the pressures of climate change, elevation, and land use. This issue is crucial for society because soil respiration is a major source of terrestrial CO2 emissions and plays a significant role in global carbon cycling; improving our understanding of these processes enhances climate models, informs soil health policies, and supports sustainable land management. The overall scientific objective of the project was to investigate the role of microbial and invertebrate activities in shaping soil respiration in Alpine environments, with a focus on understanding climate change-related alterations. It also sought to refine methods for measuring microbial activity, particularly by testing the suitability of intracellular DNA (iDNA) as a proxy for microbial activity, and to explore the combined effects of elevation, land use, and climate change on microbial communities and soil respiration.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

The belowground production of CO2 in soil (soil respiration, SR) represents an important terrestrial carbon source. Being correlated with soil temperature, SR is expected to exacerbate climate change. In addition, SR is expected to change considerably and in a patchy manner especially within the Alpine area, reflecting the effects of altitude, land use and climatic conditions. Previous studies measuring SR along altitudinal gradients, however, struggled with strong differences in environmental influences and with distinct unique faunal and microbial communities among samples.The grand ambition of ACTI-RESP is to provide in-depth knowledge and quantitative information on how microbial and invertebrate communities are influenced by altitude, land use and climate change, and on how microbial activity shapes SR. To quantify the pure effect of altitude and to investigate the effects of climate and land use, I will combine field observations and a manipulative experiment within terraXcube, a facility allowing manipulations of multiple conditions including air pressure to mimic different elevations.Thereby, I aim to further test the advantages of studying intracellular DNA (iDNA) as opposed to the generally studied environmental DNA (eDNA). Being composed by considerable amounts of extracellular DNA, eDNA does not only contain information about intact and active cells (intracellular DNA, iDNA) but also about extracellular DNA from species that might not be recently present. Here, I will study microbial agents actually shaping SR by extracting iDNA, by performing qPCR and 16S rRNA sequencing and by comparing the results to eDNA as well as RNA-based results.In doing so, I aim to - define climate change-related alterations in SR- jointly examine soil invertebrates and microorganisms- firstly describe the pure altitude effect on microbial SR, activity and community patterns- test iDNA quantification as a proxy for microbial activity and SR

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • ACCADEMIA EUROPEA DI BOLZANO · BolzanoCoordinatorItaly

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union