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Winter warming rapidly increases carbon degradation capacities of fungal communities in tundra soil: potential consequences on carbon stability
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  • Jingmin Cheng,
  • Yunfeng Yang,
  • Mengting Yuan,
  • Ziyan Qin,
  • Qun Gao,
  • Liyou Wu,
  • Zhou Shi,
  • Edward Schuur,
  • James R Cole,
  • James Tiedje,
  • Jizhong Zhou
Jingmin Cheng
Tsinghua University

Corresponding Author:chengjm17@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn

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Yunfeng Yang
Tsinghua University
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Mengting Yuan
University of Oklahoma
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Qun Gao
Tsinghua University
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Liyou Wu
University of Oklahoma
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Zhou Shi
University of Oklahoma
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Edward Schuur
Northern Arizona University
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James R Cole
Michigan State University
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James Tiedje
Michigan State University
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Jizhong Zhou
Tsinghua University
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Abstract

High-latitude tundra ecosystems are increasingly affected by climate warming. As an important fraction of soil microorganisms, fungi play essential roles in carbon (C) degradation, especially the old, chemically recalcitrant C. However, it remains obscure how fungi respond to climate warming and whether fungi, in turn, affect C stability of tundra. In a two-year winter soil warming experiment of 2 °C by snow fences, we investigated responses of fungal communities to warming in the active layer of the Alaskan tundra. Although fungal community composition, revealed by 28S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, remained unchanged (P > 0.05), fungal functional gene composition, revealed by a microarray named GeoChip, was altered (P < 0.05). Changes in functional gene composition were linked to winter soil temperature, thaw depth, soil moisture, and gross primary productivity (Canonical Correlation Analysis, P < 0.05). Specifically, relative abundances of fungal genes encoding invertase, xylose reductase, and vanillin dehydrogenase significantly increased (P < 0.05), indicating higher C degradation capacities of fungal communities under warming. Accordingly, we detected changes of fungal gene networks under warming, including higher average path distance, lower average clustering coefficient, and lower percentage of negative links, indicating that warming potentially changed fungal interactions. Together, our study revealed higher C degradation capacities of fungal communities under short-term warming and highlights the potential impacts of fungal communities on mediating tundra ecosystem respiration, and consequently future C stability of high-latitude tundra.
17 Jul 2020Submitted to Molecular Ecology
10 Aug 2020Reviewer(s) Assigned
05 Oct 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
22 Oct 2020Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
25 Oct 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
25 Oct 20201st Revision Received
30 Nov 2020Editorial Decision: Accept
10 Dec 2020Published in Molecular Ecology. 10.1111/mec.15773