Soil microbial communities regulate the threshold effect of salinity stress on SOM decomposition in coastal salt marshes

Salinity stress is one of the critical environmental drivers of soil organic matter(SOM)decomposition in coastal ecosystems.Although the temperature sensitivity(Q_(10))of SOM decomposition has been widely applied in Earth system models to forecast carbon processes,the impact of salinity on SOM decomposition by restructuring microbial communities remains uncovered.Here,we conducted a microcosm experiment with soils collected from the coastal salt marsh in the Yellow River Estuary,which is subjected to strong dynamics of salinity due to both tidal flooding and drainage.By setting a gradient of salt solutions,soil salinity was adjusted to simulate salinity stress and soil carbon emission(CO_(2))rate was measured over the period.Results showed that as salinity increased,the estimated decomposition constants based on first-order kinetics gradually decreased at different temperatures.Below the 20‰salinity treatments,which doubled the soil salinity,Q_(10)increased with increasing salinity;but higher salinity constrained the temperature-related response of SOM decomposition by inhibiting microbial growth and carbon metabolisms.Soil bacteria were more sensitive to salinity stress than fungi,which can be inferred from the response of microbial beta-diversity to changing salinity.Among them,the phylotypes assigned to Gammaproteobacteria and Bacilli showed higher salt tolerance,whereas taxa affiliated with Alphaproteobacteria and Bacteroidota were more easily inhibited by the salinity stress.Several fungal taxa belonging to Ascomycota had higher adaptability to the stress.As the substrate was consumed with the incubation,bacterial competition intensified,but the fungal co-occurrence pattern changed weakly during decomposition.Collectively,these findings revealed the threshold effect of salinity on SOM decomposition in coastal salt marshes and emphasized that salt stress plays a key role in carbon sequestration by regulating microbial keystone taxa,metabolisms,and interactions.

Comparing the temperature sensitivity of organic matter decomposition in oxic and oxygen-deprived soils

No consistent variation was found in soil respiration Q10 under various O2 conditions.Substrate C quality had a strong effect on Q10 in oxic soils.N limitation had a large impact on Q10 in soils under O2 limitation.Current studies on the temperature sensitivity(Q10)of soil organic matter(SOM)decomposition mainly focus on aerobic conditions.However,varia-tions and determinants of Q10 in oxygen(O2)-deprived soils remain unclear.Here we incubated three grassland soils under oxic,suboxic,and anoxic conditions subjected to varying temperatures to compare variations in Q10 in relation to changing substrates.No consistent variation was found in Q10 under various O2 conditions.Further analysis of edaphic properties demon-strated that substrate carbon quality showed a strong influence on Q10 in oxic soils,whereas nitrogen limitation played a more important role in suboxic and anoxic soils.These results suggest that substrate carbon quality and nitrogen limitation may play roles of varying importance in determining the temperature sensitivity of SOM decomposition under various O2 conditions.