Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/P01206X/1
Developing a trait-based framework for predicting soil microbial community response to extreme events
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Dr F T de Vries, The University of Manchester, Life Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr CG Knight, The University of Manchester, Earth Atmospheric and Env Sciences
- Grant held at:
- The University of Manchester, Life Sciences
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Panel C
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Science Topics:
- Biodiversity
- Climate change
- Ecosystems
- Earth & environmental
- Biodiversity
- Community structure
- Ecosystem function
- Ecosystem services
- Environmental stressors
- Fungal communities
- Microbes
- Community Ecology
- Biodiversity
- Carbon cycling
- Microbial communities
- Nitrogen cycling
- Soil biochemistry
- Biogeochemical Cycles
- Anthropogenic pressures
- Ecosystem function
- Ecosystem services
- Greenhouse gas emission
- Ecosystem Scale Processes
- Microbial communities
- Plant-soil interactions
- Soil biodiversity
- Soil ecosystems
- Soil microbiology
- Soil types
- Soil science
- Abstract:
- Climate change is already affecting the Earth's ecosystems. While most people think of increasing average temperatures when they think about climate change, recent years have shown us that even in the UK flooding and droughts are becoming more common, their effects devastating for many animals and plants. However, while the aboveground effects of these extreme weather events can clearly be seen, the carnage belowground remains hidden from our eyes. The soil is inhabited by millions of tiny creatures: a handful of soil can contain billions of bacterial cells, from tens of thousands of bacterial species, as well as hundreds of fungal species. The biomass of the microorganisms that live in the soil can even outweigh the biomass of the much larger animals that live on it! But these creatures are not immune to the consequences of drought and flooding. Especially bacteria don't cope very well with drought: they have semi-permeable cell walls and drought causes their cells to shrivel and die. After rewetting, they swell up and explode. Fungi, which perform many of the same functions as bacteria in the soil, are better able to cope with extreme drought than bacteria: they have stronger cell walls and are slower-growing than bacteria, which makes them more likely to resist stresses like drought. Flooding, in contrast, causes low oxygen conditions in the soil, which might be more favourable for bacteria, which are aquatic organisms, than for fungi. However, bacterial and fungal populations themselves consist of thousands of species, and these species might differ in their response to drought and flooding. But, we have very little idea of how bacterial and fungal populations are affected by these extreme weather events. Although soil bacteria and fungi are hidden beneath our feet, they perform functions that are crucial for the functioning of the Earth's ecosystems: they decompose organic matter, thereby releasing nutrients for plant growth. These are the processes that support all ecosystems on land, including the agricultural systems that produce our food. However, when bacterial and fungal populations are affected by extreme weather events, so will the processes that they perform, and these changes in processes can in turn affect aboveground plants and animals. So, these unseen organisms have the potential to make the consequences of extreme weather events that we can see with our eyes even worse. However, at present, we don't know how we can predict how changes in bacterial and fungal populations will result in a change in the processes that they perform. In this project, we will investigate how bacterial and fungal populations that live in the soil are affected by extreme weather events, and we aim to identify the traits that are responsible for this. For example, some groups of bacteria can form spores and thus survive a wide range of stresses, but there might be many other traits that can allow bacteria and fungi to cope with extreme weather events. We will use a unique experiment in which we subject soils from different climates across Europe not just to drought and flooding, but also to heatwave and freezing, and we will combine this with state-of-the-art DNA sequencing and bioinformatics to quantify bacterial and fungal response and to infer the traits responsible for this. In addition, we will measure how the processes that these organisms perform change with these extreme weather events. This work will result in fundamental knowledge on soil bacterial and fungal response to extreme weather events, and in a framework that allows us to predict how soils and their functioning will respond to extreme weather events. This knowledge is of the highest importance for adapting the Earth's ecosystems to climate change.
- Period of Award:
- 1 Apr 2018 - 31 Mar 2021
- Value:
- £433,783 Lead Split Award
Authorised funds only
- NERC Reference:
- NE/P01206X/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Standard Grant FEC
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Standard Grant
This grant award has a total value of £433,783
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DI - Equipment | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DI - T&S | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £30,715 | £100,549 | £7,547 | £25,000 | £186,955 | £43,886 | £35,448 | £3,684 |
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