Life in Dry Soils: Effects of Drought on Soil Microbial Communities and Processes

By J. Schimel. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 2018

819 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Throughout Earth's history, drought has been a common crisis in terrestrial ecosystems; in human societies, it can cause famine, one of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse. As the global hydrological cycle intensifies with global warming, deeper droughts and rewetting will alter, and possibly transform, ecosystems. Soil communities, however, seem more tolerant than plants or animals are to water stress—the main effects, in fact, on soil processes appear to be limited diffusion and the limited supply of resources to soil organisms. Thus, the rains that end a drought not only release soil microbes from stress but also create a resource pulse that fuels soil microbial activity. It remains unclear whether the effects of drought on soil processes result from drying or rewetting. It is also unclear whether the flush of activity on rewetting is driven by microbial growth or by the physical/chemical processes that mobilize organic matter. In this review, I discuss how soil water, and the lack of it, regulates microbial life and biogeochemical processes. I first focus on organismal-level responses and then consider how these influence whole-soil organic matter dynamics. A final focus is on how to incorporate these effects into Earth System models that can effectively capture dry–wet cycling.

Subfields: Ecology, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c3604968a6faa6b65e8195166b7e93946f076d10

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

1. Jizhong Zhou
2. P. Marschner
3. M. Firestone

In Soil Science

1. J. Pett‐Ridge
2. Jizhong Zhou
3. D. Herman
4. P. Marschner
5. M. Firestone

Citations in the corpus

• Microbial extracellular polysaccharide production and aggregate stability controlled by Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) root biomass and soil water potential (2019, background): “The role of EPS in enhancing microbial resistance to low water potential has been extensively discussed in the literature (Costa et al., 2018; Or et al., 2007; Schimel, 2018), with most data derived from studies on isolates (Chang et al., 2007; Ophir and Gutnick, 1994; Roberson and Firestone, 1992).”
• The interplay between microbial communities and soil properties (2023, neutral): “Microorganisms are not just passively responding to soil moisture levels 61 , but can also actively alter soil water-related properties, such as the infiltration of water into soil, water retention and evaporation (Fig.”
• Processes in submerged soils – linking redox potential, soil organic matter turnover and plants to nutrient cycling (2021, background): “In dry soil, low water availability and thin water films restrict microbial activity, diffusion and chemical reactions (Schimel 2018).”