Can active land-use management be used to make soil microbial functions resilient to drought?

In this BECC funded project we will assess how the twin challenges of landuse and climate changes will affect microbial functioning, soil fertility and carbon (C) sequestration, by determining the microbial (i) resistance and (ii) resilience to drought. We will assess the microbial use of C, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from soil organic matter (SOM), and contribution to soil C sequestration. To accomplish this, we will assess field experiments in the landuse mosaic at
Övedsklosters ägor. Insights will be incorporated into models for a state-of-the-art mechanistic representation of C-N-P cycling.

Our target is to translate landuse management into functional consequences in terms of the resilience of supporting, regulating and ultimately provisioning ecosystem services to climate change-induced drought. We will quantify how landuse conversion will impact ecosystem-level C, N and P-fluxes, and their resilience to drought. By combining landuse comparisons with the rigour of experimental assessments resolving microbial ecology responses to drought, and synthesizing these insights via conceptual models and a ecosystem model, we will reduce a central source of uncertainty regarding the biophysical drivers of the soil carbon cycle. We will also specifically address how experimental changes
of vegetation and soil management in different landuses will generate legacies for the microbial responses to drought.

This project receives grant from the Swedish Strategic Research Area Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate "BECC".