Bacterial communities and enzyme activities during litter decomposition of Elymus nutans leaf on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The dominant plant litter plays a crucial role in carbon(C)and nutrients cycling as well as ecosystem functions maintenance on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau(QTP).The impact of litter decomposition of dominant plants on edaphic parameters and grassland productivity has been extensively studied,while its decomposition processes and relevant mechanisms in this area remain poorly understood.We conducted a three-year litter decomposition experiment in the Gansu Gannan Grassland Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station,an alpine meadow ecosystem on the QTP,to investigate changes in litter enzyme activities and bacterial and fungal communities,and clarify how these critical factors regulated the decomposition of dominant plant Elymus nutans(E.nutans)litter.The results showed that cellulose and hemicellulose,which accounted for 95%of the initial lignocellulose content,were the main components in E.nutans litter decomposition.The litter enzyme activities ofβ-1,4-glucosidase(BG),β-1,4-xylosidase(BX),andβ-D-cellobiosidase(CBH)decreased with decomposition while acid phosphatase,leucine aminopeptidase,and phenol oxidase increased with decomposition.We found that both litter bacterial and fungal communities changed significantly with decomposition.Furthermore,bacterial communities shifted from copiotrophic-dominated to oligotrophic-dominated in the late stage of litter decomposition.Partial least squares path model revealed that the decomposition of E.nutans litter was mainly driven by bacterial communities and their secreted enzymes.Bacteroidota and Proteobacteria were important producers of enzymes BG,BX,and CBH,and their relative abundances were tightly positively related to the content of cellulose and hemicellulose,indicating that Bacteroidota and Proteobacteria are the main bacterial taxa of the decomposition of E.nutans litter.In conclusion,this study demonstrates that bacterial communities are the main driving forces behind the decomposition of E.nutans litter,highlighting the vital roles of bacterial communities in affecting the ecosystem functions of the QTP by regulating dominant plant litter decomposition.

Nitrogen transformation processes in soil along a High Arctic tundra transect

Soil nitrogen(N)transformation processes in the High Arctic tundra are poorly understood even though nitrogen is one of the main limiting nutrients.We analyzed soil samples collected along a High Arctic tundra transect to investigate spatial variability in key nitrogen transformation processes,functional gene abundances,ammonia-oxidizing archaea(AOA)community structures,and key nitrogen transformation regulators.The potential denitrification rates were higher than the nitrification rates in the soil samples,although nitrification may still regulate N2O emissions from tundra soil.The nutrient(total carbon,total organic carbon,total nitrogen,and NH_(4)^(+)-N)contents were important determinants of spatial variability in the potential denitrification rates of soil along the tundra transect.The total sulfurcontent was the main variable controlling potential nitrification processes,probably in association with sulfate-reducing bacteria.The nitrate content was the main variable affecting potential dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium.AOA and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria amoA,nirS,and anammox 16S rRNA genes were found in all of the soil samples.AOA play more important roles than ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in soilnitrification.Anammox bacteria may utilize NO_(2)^(-)produced through nitrification.Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the AOA amoA sequences could be grouped into eight unique operational taxonomic units(OTUs)with a 97%sequence similarity and were affiliated with three group 1.1b Nitrososphaeraclusters.The results indicated that heterogeneous environmental factors(e.g.,the carbon and nitrogen contents of soil)along the High Arctic tundra transect strongly affected the nitrogen transformation rate and relevant functional gene abundances in soil.

Vegetation phenology and its ecohydrological implications from individual to global scales

The Earth is experiencing unprecedented climate change.Vegetation phenology has already showed strong response to the global warming,which alters mass and energy fluxes on terrestrial ecosystems.With technology and method developments in remote sensing,computer science and citizen science,many recent phenology-related studies have been focused on macrophenology.In this perspective,we 1)reviewed the responses of vegetation phenology to climate change and its impacts on carbon cycling,and reported that the effect of shifted phenology on the terrestrial carbon fluxes is substantially different between spring and autumn;2)elaborated how vegetation phenology affects ecohydrological processes at different scales,and further listed the key issues for each scale,i.e.,focusing on seasonal effect,local feedbacks and regional vapor transport for individual,watershed and global respectively);3)envisioned the potentials to improve current hydrological models by coupling vegetation phenology-related processes,in combining with machine learning,deep learning and scale transformation methods.We propose that comprehensive understanding of climate-macrophenology-hydrology interactions are essential and urgently needed for enhancing our understanding of the ecosystem response and its role in hydrological cycle under future climate change.

Contrasting phenology responses to climate warming across the northern extra-tropics

Climate warming has substantially advanced the timing of spring leaf-out of woody species at middle and high latitudes,albeit with large differences.Insights in the spatial variation of this climate warming response may therefore help to constrain future trends in leaf-out and its impact on energy,water and carbon balances at global scales.In this study,we used in situ phenology observations of 38 species from 2067 study sites,distributed across the northern hemisphere in China,Europe and the United States,to investigate the latitudinal patterns of spring leaf-out and its sensitivity(S T,advance of leaf-out dates per degree of warming)and correlation(R_(T),partial correlation coefficient)to temperature during the period 1980-2016.Across all species and sites,we found that S_(T) decreased significantly by 0.15±0.02 d℃^(-1)°N^(-1),and R_(T) increased by 0.02±0.001°N^(-1)(both at P<0.001).The latitudinal patterns in R_(T) and S_(T) were explained by the differences in requirements of chilling and thermal forcing that evolved to maximize tree fitness under local climate,particularly climate predictability and summed precipitation during the pre-leaf-out season.Our results thus showed complicated spatial differences in leaf-out responses to ongoing climate warming and indicated that spatial differences in the interactions among environmental cues need to be embedded into large-scale phenology models to improve the simulation accuracy.