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U-GRASS UNDERSTANDING AND ENHANCING SOIL ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND RESILIENCE UK GRASS AND CROPLANDS Rationale: Soil biodiversity is explicitly linked to soil functionality, and knowledge of change in soil biodiversity will explain and predict change in soil services under different soil, climatic and land use contexts Aim: Apply new biodiversity knowledge and advanced experimental approaches to understand how environmental change affects soil processes in a

U-GRASS Sprin 2016

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Page 1: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

U-GRASS UNDERSTANDING AND ENHANCING SOIL ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND RESILIENCE

UK GRASS AND CROPLANDS• Rationale:• Soil biodiversity is explicitly linked to soil functionality, and knowledge of

change in soil biodiversity will explain and predict change in soil services under different soil, climatic and land use contexts

• Aim:• Apply new biodiversity knowledge and advanced experimental approaches to

understand how environmental change affects soil processes in a variety of management and climatic scenarios

Page 2: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

Understanding and enhancing soil ecosystem services and resilience in UK grass and croplands

Carbon cycling

Nitrogen

cycling

Diversity

Modelling

Climate

change

Land use

transitions

Resilience

Page 3: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

Understanding and enhancing soil ecosystem services and resilience in UK grass and croplands

Methodologies:

• Survey land use intensity (grassland unimproved/improved

and arable)

• 30 land use gradients (30 sites, 3 intensities, 5 replicates)

spread over UK (from acidic to calcareous)

• High throughput sequencing

• Soil functional assays (enzymes,genes, greenhouse gas

emission)

• Isotope tracers

• Mesocosm soil resilience experiments

• Microcosm diversity tests

• New integrating modelling approaches

Page 4: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

Objectives:

Survey of soil microbial biodiversity (30 sites; 450 samples): - Bacteria 16s ; Fungi ITS ; Eukaryotes 18S Soil extracellular enzyme activities

Soil properties- C, N, P, pH- Near Infrared Spectroscopy - DOC (concentration and chemistry fluo 3D) Statistics: Model RDA, network analysis, PLS regression, SEM

South West sites (Acidic soil) )

Methods:

Some results:

Land use intensity (LUI)

WP1: Field patterns and relationships between soils, biodiversity and functions

Jeremy Puissant, Tim Goodall, Ashish Malik, Robert Griffiths

?

Land use intensity

Network analysis

Page 5: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

Land use intensity

Page 6: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

Aimeric Blaud, Ian Clark, Penny Hirsch

Survey of soil biodiversity & multiple ecosystems services in UK grass and croplands (WP1)

Question: determine the relationships between soil biodiversity, properties & functionality under different management in wide range of soil systems

N2

NH4+

NO3-

NO2-

NH3

Den

itrifi

catio

n

NO2-

NO

N2O

NH2OH

NO2-

Anammox

N fixation

Nitr

ifica

tion

DNRA

Comammox

nifH

amoA

nxrA

nrfA

narG

napA

nirK nirS

norB

nosZhao

amoA

Methods:• UK sampling: ~90 fields, ~450 samples

• DNA extraction• Design and update primer to target N

cycle genes

• Quantification of genes by Q-PCR

• Use of amplicon sequencing

• Relate genes abundance/diversity to environmental variables

Specific objective: survey the microorganisms involved in the N cycle

Page 7: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

Kate Buckeridge (PDRA), Kelly Mason, Nick Ostle, Jeanette Whitaker, Niall McNamara

Land use intensity (LUI) Microbial community structure WP2. Soil biodiversity and functional resistance-resilience (R-R)WP3. C storage, GHG emissions, CNP cycling

Sample across UK (pH, SOM, clay)Short microcosm incubations with added simple (glucose) and complex (necromass) 13C-labelled substratesAnalyse 13C in MB, PLFA and CO2

Characterize response relative to LUI, SOM, pH, mineralogy

9 sit

es x

3 LU

I x 5

repl

icat

es =

135

Current experiment H: LUI alters microbial community structure (favours r-strategists), which reduces resource use efficiency (i.e. more C respired relative to biomass gain)

LUIr:K strategists

C se

ques

trati

onR-

RGH

G em

issi

ons

Page 8: U-GRASS Sprin 2016

How?

(Microcosm) manipulation of microbial diversity

1. Common garden experiments2. Recipical transplant experiments3. ‘burying soil’4. Diversity manipulations

Testing mechanisms of microbial diversity

• Microbial migration• Microbial exchange• Community composition• Succession of microbial community• Community establishment• Community stability

Objective: Determine explicit role of altered microbial biodiversity in regulating soil services

WP 4. Determining biotic and abiotic regulation of soil services under different management intensity

t=1 t=2 t=3 t=4 t=5 t=6

1 month

(sterile soil)