One difficulty in using bioremediation at a contaminated site is demonstrating that biodegradation is actually occurring in situ. The stable isotope composition of contaminants may help with this, since they can serve as an indicator of biological activity. To use this approach it is necessary to establish how a particular […]
Elevated CO2 is expected to lower plant nutrient concentrations via carbohydrate dilution and increased nutrient use efficiency. Elevated CO2 consistently lowers plant foliar nitrogen, but there is no consensus on CO2 effects across the range of plant nutrients. We used meta-analysis to quantify elevated CO2 effects on leaf, stem, root, […]
Six terrestrial ecosystems in the USA were exposed to elevated atmospheric CO2 in single or multifactorial experiments for more than a decade to assess potential impacts. We retrospectively assessed soil bacterial community responses in all six-field experiments and found ecosystem-specific and common patterns of soil bacterial community response to elevated […]
Plant growth often responds rapidly to experimentally simulated climate change1, 2. Feedbacks can modulate the initial responses3, but these feedbacks are difficult to detect when they operate on long timescales4. We transplanted intact plant–soil mesocosms down an elevation gradient to expose them to a warmer climate and used collectors and […]
Evidence is mounting that extinctions are altering key processes important to the productivity and sustainability of Earth’s ecosystems1, 2, 3, 4. Further species loss will accelerate change in ecosystem processes5, 6, 7, 8, but it is unclear how these effects compare to the direct effects of other forms of environmental […]
Global environmental changes are expected to alter ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling, but the interactive effects of multiple simultaneous environmental changes are poorly understood. Effects of these changes on the production of nitrous oxide (N2O), an important greenhouse gas, could accelerate climate change. We assessed the responses of soil N2O […]
Effects of anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition and the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to store carbon (C) depend in part on the amount of N retained in the system and its partitioning among plant and soil pools. We conducted a meta-analysis of studies at 48 sites across four continents that used […]
Carbon uptake by forests is a major sink in the global carbon cycle, helping buffer the rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, yet the potential for future carbon uptake by forests is uncertain. Climate warming and drought can reduce forest carbon uptake by reducing photosynthesis, increasing respiration, and by […]
The Rehai and Ruidian geothermal fields, located in Tengchong County, Yunnan Province, China, host a variety of geochemically distinct hot springs. In this study, we report a comprehensive, cultivation-independent census of microbial communities in 37 samples collected from these geothermal fields, encompassing sites ranging in temperature from 55.1 to 93.6°C, […]
Increased atmospheric CO2 and rising temperatures are expected to affect rice yields and greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from rice paddies1, 2, 3, 4. This is important, because rice cultivation is one of the largest human-induced sources of the potent GHG methane5 (CH4) and rice is the world’s second-most produced staple crop6. […]