Dormancy rates in microbial communities across an elevational gradient
Abstract
Despite the broad impacts microbial dormancy has on ecosystems and ecosystem models, dormancy as a response to climate-change-related environmental stressors is poorly understood. Dormancy is an essential bet-hedging strategy used by microbes to tolerate unfavorable conditions and increase overall community diversity. Accurate estimates of dormancy improve existing models of microbial systems. However, the ways in which climatic gradients shape the level of dormancy in soil bacterial and fungal communities remains unclear. Here, we performed a genomics-based, integrated field and laboratory study to evaluate the level of dormancy in bacterial and fungal communities across a natural climate gradient to test if dormancy in bacterial and fungal communities was related to changes in soil properties and climatic factors. To test this question, we examined microbial dormancy at five sites along an elevational gradient near Crested Butte, CO. Additionally, temporal changes over the growing season may shift dormancy patterns at a single site, leading us to collect weekly samples from a low and high elevation site to compare dormancy shifts among sites and temporal shifts within sites. Dormancy work is ongoing, however some preliminary evidence has shown that pH decreases from low to high elevation and increases over the growing season. A better grasp of microbial dormancy will improve our ability to model microbial communities and ecosystems, thus leading to a more thorough understanding of the effects climate change will have on microbial communities and the myriad of environmental processes that they support.
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