Abstract
Warming and precipitation anomalies affect terrestrial carbon balance partly through altering microbial growth and death in soil. However, little is known about how such eco-physiological traits responds to simultaneous regime shifts in temperature and precipitation. We used the 18O-water quantitative stable isotope probing approach to estimate bacterial growth in alpine meadow soils of the Tibetan Plateau after a decade of warming and altered precipitation manipulation in situ. Our results showed that the growth of major taxa was suppressed by either individual or interactive global change factors, eliciting 40-90% of growth reduction of whole community. The antagonistic interactions of warming and altered precipitation on population growth were common (∼70% taxa), represented by the weak antagonistic interactions of warming and drought, and the neutralizing effects of warming and wet. These results are important to understand and predict the soil microbial dynamics in alpine meadow ecosystems suffering from multiple climate change factors.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
