PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Elsa Abs
AU  - Scott R. Saleska
AU  - Regis Ferriere
TI  - Microbial evolution reshapes soil carbon feedbacks to climate change
AID  - 10.1101/641399
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 641399
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/05/19/641399.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/05/19/641399.full
AB  - Microbial decomposition of soil organic matter is a key component of the global carbon cycle. As Earth’s climate changes, the response of microbes and microbial enzymes to rising temperatures will, though emission of additional CO2, largely determine the soil carbon feedback to climate. However, while increasing attention focuses on physiological and ecological mechanisms of microbial responses, the role of evolutionary adaptation to warming has been little studied. To address this gap, we developed an eco-evolutionary model of a soil microbe-enzyme system under warming. Constraining the model with observations from five contrasting biomes reveals that evolution will likely aggravate soil carbon losses to the atmosphere, a positive feedback to climate change. The model reveals a strong latitudinal gradient in evolutionary effects, driven mostly by initial temperature, from small evolutionary effects at low (warm) latitudes to large effects at high (cold) latitudes. Accounting for evolutionary mechanisms will likely be critical for improving projections of Earth system responses to climate change.