Soil is an essential carbon store for life on Earth. In fact, it stores more carbon than the atmosphere and plants combined. germs ground they are largely responsible for storing this carbon.. However, the increasing frequency and Intensity of drought threatens to alter this fragile ecosystem.
Microbial ecologist Steven Allison of the University of California at Irvine (USA) published an opinion piece in ‘Trends in Microbiology’, where he warned: soil health and future greenhouse gas levels may be affected whether soil microbes adapt to drought faster than plants.
Allison warns that we need to better understand how microbes respond to drought so we can manage the future situation in both agricultural and natural environments.
“Soil microbes are beneficial“We can’t live without carbon and nutrient cycling, but climate change and drought can change that balance and we need to be aware of how it’s changing,” says Allison.
These microorganisms take part in the carbon cycle. some microbes healers carbon from decaying organisms. Others mechanics the same carbon in the soil And there’s a third group, saviors Each one of these gases does their job, and it is vital that all three continue to do their job so that ecosystem balances are not disturbed.
“The ‘captured’ carbon in the soil has knock-on effects on the rest of the world in terms of infrastructure in our natural and managed ecosystems,” Allison says. From another perspective, microbes could be vital in tackling global warmingbecause carbon accumulation in the soil depends on them.
very long droughts
Carbon-rich soils contain more nutrients, so plants grown in them tend to be more productive. Moreover, carbon changes the physical properties of the soil and prevents erosion.
HE global warming causes in many parts of the planet very long droughts and then, very heavy rains. Under these conditions, water ‘sequesters’ carbon from the soil and releases it into the atmosphere, causing soil erosion, landslides, sediment transport and other additional problems.
“In terms of mitigating the climate emergency, what we want is more carbon in plants and soil and less carbon in the atmosphereso the more carbon plants can absorb through photosynthesis and the more it is transferred and retained in the soil, the better. climate changeAllison explains.
Therefore, it is important to know how the balance between incoming and outgoing carbon changes with drought, rising temperatures or any other climate factor.
Allison points out that the problem may arise if microbes adapt to increased drought frequency faster than plants. And he suspects it will, because microbes adapt very easily to external elements.
“Microbes can change their physiology, they can change their abundance, so that other drought-adapted congeners can take control and evolve very quickly, so we expect them to resist or recover from drought,” says Alison, which is slower in plants because too much of these processes occur.
carbon-poor soils
The result of all this is that If microbes that release more carbon than those that capture carbon survive, carbon-depleting soils can occur.which would be serious negative implications for plant productivity and future levels greenhouse gasessays the ecologist.
“Currently, we have data showing that when there is drought, something changes that causes carbon loss, but if drought changes the abundance of beneficial microbes associated with plants, we do not fully understand how and why it happens against carbon-releasing microbes, or whether it causes evolution of one of the microbe groups. , or is it more determined by changes in their momentary physiology,” he says.
Allison thinks it’s possible to “push the balance in the right direction,” but notes that there’s “a lot to do” and “more research” is needed.
Some Microbes Can Help Plants Cope With Drought. If you can figure out which microbes are most beneficial to plants and most likely to sequester carbon in the soil, you can try to tip the scales in their favor.
“We have a lot of potential to manage or engineer soil microbes,” Allison says. “We can manipulate soil or add microbes in agricultural systems” carbon scavengersTo add.
“In more natural systems, management should probably focus on plants: soil microbes are often closely intertwined with plants, so plant management can also benefit the microbial part of the ecosystem‘ says the ecologist.
Among his proposals, he concludes to investigate how drought affects carbon availability in the soils of different habitats, “from arctic tundra to deserts.”
Reference article: https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(23)00078-1
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