{"268541":{"#nid":"268541","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Soil Microbes Alter DNA in Response to Warming","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAs scientists forecast the impacts of climate change, one missing piece of the puzzle is what will happen to the carbon in the soil and the microbes that control the fate of this carbon as the planet warms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EScientists studying grasslands in Oklahoma have discovered that an increase of 2 degrees Celsius in the air temperature above the soil creates significant changes to the microbial ecosystem underground. Compared to a control group with no warming, plants in the warmer plots grew faster and higher, which put more carbon into the soil as the plants senesce. The microbial ecosystem responded by altering its DNA to enhance the ability to handle the excess carbon.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat we conclude from this study is the warming has an effect on the soil ecosystem,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/enve-omics.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EKostas Konstantinidis\u003C\/a\u003E, an assistant professor who holds the Carlton S. Wilder Chair in Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u201cIt does appear that the microbes change genetically to take advantage of the opportunity given to them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study was published online Dec. 27, 2013, in the journal \u003Cem\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1128\/AEM.03712-13\u0022\u003EApplied and Environmental Microbiology\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E. The research was sponsored by the Department of Energy, and involved collaboration with several universities, including the University of Oklahoma.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe findings are the culmination of a 10-year study that seeks to understand how the most intricate ecosystem in nature \u2014 soil \u2014 will respond to climate change.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA single gram of soil is home to a billion bacterial cells, representing at least 4,000 different species. In comparison, the human gut is home to at least 10 times fewer different species of bacteria. Scientists have little idea what microbes in the soil do, how they do it, or how they respond to changes in their environment, Konstantinidis said. This limits the predictive capabilities of climate models.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn models of climate change it is a black box what happens to the carbon in soil,\u201d Konstantinidis said. \u201cOne reasons that models of climate change have such big room for variation is because we don\u2019t understand the microbial activities that control carbon in the soil.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EComplicating matters, 99.9 percent of the microbes in the soil cannot be grown in the lab, so scientists must study them where they live. The molecular and genomic techniques to do so are a specialty of the Konstantinidis lab. (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/enve-omics.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EMore on the Konstantinidis lab\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers traveled to the Kessler Farm Field Laboratory in McClain County, Oklahoma, where they conducted their study on grassland soils, which had been abandoned for agriculture use for more than 20 years. The scientists warmed plots of soil with radiators set a few feet above the ground for 10 consecutive years. They warmed these plots 2 degrees Celsius, which many climate models forecast as the global temperature increase over the next 50 years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers took samples of the plants, measured the carbon content and the number of microbes in the soil, and documented any changes in the warm plots versus the control plots. The team also extracted DNA from the soil and identified the genetic composition and changes of the microbes living there.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe plants in the warm plots grew better and higher. As the plants started senescing at theend of the season, their higher biomass led to more carbon in the soil. However, the microbial communities had increased their rate of respiration, which converted soil organic carbon to carbon dioxide (CO2), so the total carbon in the warm and control soils was similar.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe microbial communities in the warm soils had undergone significant changes during the decade of the experiment, which facilitated their higher respiration rate. For instance, the study of the DNA of the microbes revealed found that the microbial communities of the warm plots had more genes related to carbon respiration than the microbes in the control plots.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat was consistent with the idea that the additional carbon from the plants was all respired and converted to CO2,\u201d Konstantinidis said. \u201cWe saw that the warmed microbial community was more efficient in eating up the plant-derived soil carbon and making it CO2.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research team plans to do similar studies in other agricultural soils and in colder areas, such as Alaska tundra permafrost ecosystems, where there is more organic carbon in the soil.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are complex interactions between plants and microbes and we need to understand them better to have a more predictive understanding of what\u2019s going on,\u201d Konstantinidis said. \u201cThis is the first study trying to do that, but we are not close to the complete understanding yet.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research is supported by the Department of Energy under award number DE-SC0004601.Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the DOE.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Chengwei Luo, et al., \u0022Soil microbial community responses to a decade of warming as revealed by comparative metagenomics,\u0022 (\u003Cem\u003EApplied and Environmental Microbiology\u003C\/em\u003E, January 2013). (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1128\/AEM.03712-13\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1128\/AEM.03712-13\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/GTResearchNews\u0022\u003E@GTResearchNews\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts:\u003C\/strong\u003E Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter:\u003C\/strong\u003E Brett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAs scientists forecast the impacts of climate change, one missing piece of the puzzle is what will happen to the carbon in the soil and the microbes that control the fate of this carbon as the planet warms.\u0026nbsp;Scientists studying grasslands in Oklahoma have discovered that an increase of 2 degrees Celsius in the air temperature above the soil creates significant changes to the microbial ecosystem underground.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u0026nbsp;","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Scientists studying grasslands in Oklahoma have discovered that an increase of 2 degrees Celsius in the air temperature above the soil creates significant changes to the microbial ecosystem underground."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2014-01-16 11:51:33","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:40","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-01-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-01-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"268531":{"id":"268531","type":"image","title":"Simulating warmer soils","body":null,"created":"1449244058","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:47:38","changed":"1475894956","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:16","alt":"Simulating warmer soils","file":{"fid":"198571","name":"soil-plots1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/soil-plots1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/soil-plots1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":283964,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/soil-plots1_0.jpg?itok=LzSSXOrv"}},"268521":{"id":"268521","type":"image","title":"Studying microbes in the soil","body":null,"created":"1449244058","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:47:38","changed":"1475894956","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:16","alt":"Studying microbes in the soil","file":{"fid":"198570","name":"kostas_and_alex1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/kostas_and_alex1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/kostas_and_alex1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":290756,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/kostas_and_alex1_0.jpg?itok=fPdVcl3r"}}},"media_ids":["268531","268521"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"154","name":"Environment"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2546","name":"bioinformatics"},{"id":"791","name":"Global Warming"},{"id":"12758","name":"Kostas Konstantinidis"},{"id":"5696","name":"Microbiology"},{"id":"169623","name":"soil microbes"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71911","name":"Earth and Environment"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}