Abstract
Resource acquisition and growth yield are fundamental microbial traits that affect biogeochemical processes and have consequences for ecosystem functioning. However, there is a lack of empirical observations linking these traits. Using a landscape-scale survey of temperate near-neutral pH soils, we show tradeoffs in key community-level parameters linked to these traits. Increased investment into extracellular enzymes estimated using specific potential enzyme activity was associated with reduced growth yield obtained using carbon use efficiency measures from stable isotope tracing. Reduction in growth yield was linked more to carbon than nitrogen acquisition highlighting smaller stoichiometric than energetic constraints on community metabolism in examined soils.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 36-39 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Soil Biology and Biochemistry |
| Volume | 132 |
| Early online date | 1 Feb 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 May 2019 |
Bibliographical note
AAM has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant No 655240. We also acknowledge the UK Natural Environment Research Council for the Soil Security grant NE/M017125/1 to RIG, JP and TG, and the US DOE Genomic Science Program, BER, Office of Science project DE-SC0016410 funding to AAM and SDA.Keywords
- Carbon
- Carbon use efficiency
- Enzymes
- Microbial communities
- Nitrogen
- Traits
