title: Warming Alters Expressions of Microbial Functional Genes Important to Ecosystem Functioning.
abstract: Soil microbial communities play critical roles in ecosystem functioning and are likely altered by climate warming. However, so far, little is known about effects of warming on microbial functional gene expressions. Here, we applied functional gene array (GeoChip 3.0) to analyze cDNA reversely transcribed from total RNA to assess expressed functional genes in active soil microbial communities after nine years of experimental warming in a tallgrass prairie. Our results showed that warming significantly altered the community wide gene expressions. Specifically, expressed genes for degrading more recalcitrant carbon were stimulated by warming, likely linked to the plant community shift toward more C4 species under warming and to decrease the long-term soil carbon stability. In addition, warming changed expressed genes in labile C degradation and N cycling in different directions (increase and decrease), possibly reflecting the dynamics of labile C and available N pools during sampling. However, the average abundances of expressed genes in phosphorus and sulfur cycling were all increased by warming, implying a stable trend of accelerated P and S processes which might be a mechanism to sustain higher plant growth. Furthermore, the expressed gene composition was closely related to both dynamic (e.g., soil moisture) and stable environmental attributes (e.g., C4 leaf C or N content), indicating that RNA analyses could also capture certain stable trends in the long-term treatment. Overall, this study revealed the importance of elucidating functional gene expressions of soil microbial community in enhancing our understanding of ecosystem responses to warming.
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua UniversityBeijing, China; Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; School of Mineral Processing and Bioengineering, Central South UniversityChangsha, China.
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA.
authors.forename: Aifen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA.
authors.forename: Feifei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman OK, USA.
authors.forename: Dejun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA.
authors.forename: Liyou
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; CAS Key Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA.
authors.forename: Zhili
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA.
authors.forename: Joy D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Van Nostrand
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman OK, USA.
authors.forename: Yiqi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua UniversityBeijing, China; Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, NormanOK, USA; Earth Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, BerkeleyCA, USA.
authors.forename: Jizhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
keywords: GeoChip; RNA; functional gene expression; global climate change; warming