Microbial functional changes mark irreversible course of Tibetan grassland degradation

authored by

Andreas Breidenbach, Per Marten Schleuss, Shibin Liu, Dominik Schneider, Michaela A. Dippold, Tilman de la Haye, Georg Miehe, Felix Heitkamp, Elke Seeber, Kyle Mason-Jones, Xingliang Xu, Yang Huanming, Jianchu Xu, Tsechoe Dorji, Matthias Gube, Helge Norf, Jutta Meier, Georg Guggenberger, Yakov Kuzyakov, Sandra Spielvogel

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau’s Kobresia pastures store 2.5% of the world’s soil organic carbon (SOC). Climate change and overgrazing render their topsoils vulnerable to degradation, with SOC stocks declining by 42% and nitrogen (N) by 33% at severely degraded sites. We resolved these losses into erosion accounting for two-thirds, and decreased carbon (C) input and increased SOC mineralization accounting for the other third, and confirmed these results by comparison with a meta-analysis of 594 observations. The microbial community responded to the degradation through altered taxonomic composition and enzymatic activities. Hydrolytic enzyme activities were reduced, while degradation of the remaining recalcitrant soil organic matter by oxidative enzymes was accelerated, demonstrating a severe shift in microbial functioning. This may irreversibly alter the world´s largest alpine pastoral ecosystem by diminishing its C sink function and nutrient cycling dynamics, negatively impacting local food security, regional water quality and climate.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Soil Science

External Organisation(s)

University of Göttingen
University of Tübingen
University of Bayreuth
Chengdu University of Technology
Kiel University
Philipps-Universität Marburg
State Museum of Natural History Görlitz
Netherlands Institute of Ecology
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Beijing Institute of Genomics, CAS
Kunming Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences
Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health
University of Koblenz-Landau
Northwest German Forest Research Institute (NW-FVA)

Type

Article

Journal

Nature Communications

Volume

13

No. of pages

10

ISSN

2041-1723

Publication date

2022

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Chemistry, General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology, General Physics and Astronomy

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 2 - Zero Hunger, SDG 13 - Climate Action

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30047-7 (Access: Open)