Background/Question/Methods
Recent years have witnessed a resurging interest in examining microbial functional traits, which shed light on microbial community functions. Using combination of metagenomics tools such as high-throughput sequencing and GeoChip with traditional approaches to measure soil biogeochemistry, we are interested in understanding two fundamental questions: how global changes affect functional traits of soil microbial communities, and how changes in microbial functional traits affect soil biogeochemical cycling.
Results/Conclusions
We have conducted a number of in situ field experiments, including the first survey of microbial functional traits in the Tibetan plateau, one of the most fragile ecosystems under severe threats by climate warming. We found that microbial functional traits were sensitive, DNA abundance of soil microbial carbon and nitrogen cycling genes could be correlated with soil carbon and nitrogen cycling processes, and inclusion of microbial components improved soil carbon stock models.