Climate change is altering the timing and magnitude of biogeochemical fluxes in many high- elevation ecosystems. The consequent changes in alpine nitrification rates have the potential to influence ecosystem scale res...Climate change is altering the timing and magnitude of biogeochemical fluxes in many high- elevation ecosystems. The consequent changes in alpine nitrification rates have the potential to influence ecosystem scale responses. In order to better understand how changing temperature and moisture conditions may influence ammonia oxidizers and nitrification activity, we conducted laboratory incubations on soils collected in a Colorado watershed from three alpine habitats （glacial outwash, talus, and meadow）. We found that bacteria, not archaea, dominated all ammonia oxidizer communities. Nitrification increased with moisture in all soils and under all temperature treatments. However, temperature was not correlated with nitrification rates in all soils. Site-specific temperature trends suggest the development of generalist ammonia oxidzer communities in soils with greater in situ temperature fluctuations and specialists in soils with more steady temperature regimes. Rapidly increasing tempera- tures and changing soil moisture conditions could explain recent observations of increased nitrate production in some alpine soils.展开更多
文摘Climate change is altering the timing and magnitude of biogeochemical fluxes in many high- elevation ecosystems. The consequent changes in alpine nitrification rates have the potential to influence ecosystem scale responses. In order to better understand how changing temperature and moisture conditions may influence ammonia oxidizers and nitrification activity, we conducted laboratory incubations on soils collected in a Colorado watershed from three alpine habitats （glacial outwash, talus, and meadow）. We found that bacteria, not archaea, dominated all ammonia oxidizer communities. Nitrification increased with moisture in all soils and under all temperature treatments. However, temperature was not correlated with nitrification rates in all soils. Site-specific temperature trends suggest the development of generalist ammonia oxidzer communities in soils with greater in situ temperature fluctuations and specialists in soils with more steady temperature regimes. Rapidly increasing tempera- tures and changing soil moisture conditions could explain recent observations of increased nitrate production in some alpine soils.
