Sustainable land use enhances soil microbial respiration responses to experimental heat stress

Soil microbial communities provide numerous ecosystem functions, such as
nutrient cycling, decomposition, and carbon storage. However, global
change, including land-use and climate changes, affects soil microbial
communities and activity. As extreme weather events (e.g., heatwaves) tend
to increase in magnitude and frequency, we investigated the effects of
heat stress on the activity (e.g., respiration) of soil microbial
communities that had experienced four different long-term land-use
intensity treatments (ranging from extensive grassland, intensive
grassland to organic and conventional croplands) and two climate
conditions (ambient vs. predicted future climate). Here, using soils from
a long-term field experiment and laboratory heat stress, we investigate
the combined history effects of climate change and land-use intensity on
soil microbial respiration and its respiration response to heat stress
(Fig. 1). Soil samples were collected from the Global Change Experimental
Facility (GCEF, Fig. 1A), where soils had been subjected to a future
climate treatment and varying levels of land-use intensity for ten years.
To simulate heat stress, soils were incubated at either 20 °C, 25 °C,
30 °C, or 35 °C under laboratory conditions, and we assessed the soil
microbial respiration response (Fig. 1C).