{"id":1076,"date":"2018-08-02T16:32:39","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T15:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/in-abstract\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2019-02-06T11:09:15","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T11:09:15","slug":"soil-bacterial-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/in-abstract\/soil-bacterial-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Soil bacterial networks are less stable under drought than fungal networks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unravelling the mechanisms through which drought affects soil functioning<\/strong><\/p>\n

Drought is increasing in frequency and intensity, presenting a major threat to terrestrial ecosystems. While it is known that drought can strongly affect plant growth, researchers from the University of Manchester have shown that it also has long-lasting effects on below ground microbial communities and their interaction networks. Soils contain millions of microbes – bacteria and fungi – that interact in a variety of ways: from competition and cooperation, to chemical warfare and simply sharing the same space. Understanding the response of these microbes and their interactions to climate change is important because they perform crucial functions in soil, such as the breakdown of organic matter and the release of nutrients for plant growth. In a large-scale outdoor pot experiment the researchers found that the interaction networks of bacteria were more destabilised by drought than those of fungi, which led to changes in soil functioning. They also found that the drought caused shifts in plant species, which destabilised the bacterial networks even more. In contrast to the researchers\u2019 expectations, plants played a less important role in reorganising fungal networks. These findings advance our understanding of the mechanisms through which drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, potentially affecting their ability to resist future droughts.<\/p>\n

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