From macroclimate to microclimate: Plant-soil microbial interactions and ecosystem carbon cycling under global change

Destabilized carbon (C) fluxes, caused by climate change, may shift forest ecosystems from C sinks to C sources.

While we know that forest C cycling is largely driven by the activity of plants and their associated soil microbes, there remains uncertainty about how C cycling will respond to projected scenarios of climate change.

This uncertainty largely stems from the challenge of translating measured and predicted macroclimate variables into microclimate conditions experienced by plants and soil microbes. This requires us to rethink how we study climate change effects on ecosystem C cycling.

Here, we test the importance of macro-microclimate decoupling for ecosystem C cycling and soil microbial functioning across diverse forested ecosystems.

Using a unique network of microclimate loggers spanning a macroclimatic gradient in Sweden, we test the links between forest structural complexity, macro-microclimate decoupling, and net ecosystem C exchange.

We then delve into belowground dynamics, testing the relationships between microclimatic variables and soil microbial community composition and C cycling functions.

Finally, we zoom further in testing how changes in climatic factors influence soil microbial C functions, using a unique climate chambers experiment simulating various global warming scenarios.

Our projects breaks new ground and provides new knowledge advancing our understanding and prediction of the vulnerability of forest ecosystem C cycling under climate warming.