The human microbiome can play a key role in host susceptibility to pathogens, including in the nasal cavity, a site favored by Staphylococcus aureus. However, what determines our resident nasal microbiota—the host or the environment—and can interactions among nasal bacteria determine S. aureus colonization? Our study of 46 monozygotic and […]
Forests sequester carbon from the atmosphere, helping mitigate climate change. In fire-prone forests, burn events result in direct and indirect emissions of carbon. High fire-induced tree mortality can cause a transition from a carbon sink to source, but thinning and prescribed burning can reduce fire severity and carbon loss when […]
Conservation agriculture (CA) has been promoted as a method of sustainable intensification and climate change mitigation and is being widely practiced and implemented globally. However, no-till (NT), a fundamental component of CA, has been shown to reduce yields in many cases. In order to maintain yields following adoption of CA, […]
No-till agriculture represents a relatively widely adopted management system that aims to reduce soil erosion, decrease input costs, and sustain long-term crop productivity. However, its impacts on crop yields are variable, and an improved understanding of the factors limiting productivity is needed to support evidence-based management decisions. We conducted a […]
In the boreal forest of Alaska, increased fire severity associated with climate change is expanding deciduous forest cover in areas previously dominated by black spruce (Picea mariana). Needle-leaf conifer and broad-leaf deciduous species are commonly associated with differences in tree growth, carbon (C) and nutrient cycling, and C accumulation in […]
Increasing temperatures have been shown to impact soil biogeochemical processes, although the corresponding changes to the underlying microbial functional communities are not well understood. Alterations in the nitrogen (N) cycling functional component are particularly important as N availability can affect microbial decomposition rates of soil organic matter and influence plant […]
Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase plant productivity and affect soil microbial communities, with possible consequences for the turnover rate of soil carbon (C) pools and feedbacks to the atmosphere. In a previous analysis (Van Groenigen et al., 2014), we used experimental data to inform a one-pool model and showed that elevated […]
Permafrost soils contain more than 1300 Pg of carbon (C), twice the amount of C in the atmosphere. Temperatures in higher latitudes are increasing, inducing permafrost thaw and subsequent microbial decomposition of previously frozen C, which will most likely feed back to climate warming through release of the greenhouse gases CO2 […]
Dam decommissioning projects, although numerous, rarely include complete sets of data before and after restoration for evaluating the ecological consequences of such projects. In this study, we used a before-after control-impact (BACI) design to assess changes in leaf litter decomposition and associated macroinvertebrate and fungal decomposers following dam decommissioning in […]
Microbial decomposition of soil carbon in high-latitude tundra underlain with permafrost is one of the most important, but poorly understood, potential positive feedbacks of greenhouse gas emissions from terrestrial ecosystems into the atmosphere in a warmer world1, 2, 3, 4. Using integrated metagenomic technologies, we showed that the microbial functional […]