Speaker
Description
Terrestrial ecosystems acquire carbon via photosynthesis and lose it predominately through soil respiration. These coupled processes occur rhythmically in diel cycles. Global changes that influence carbon loss vs carbon gain alter ecosystem carbon storage capacity. Yet, the mechanisms underlying the influence of some global change drivers on ecosystem processes remain undocumented. We test how Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) influences realistically diverse grassland plant-soil communities in the iDiv Ecotron. We show that, during peak plant biomass, ALAN reduces soil respiration, a result that was associated with a shift from plant to heterotrophic soil respiration. We detected no ALAN influence on plant photosynthetic responses. Moreover, we found neither soils nor plants were sensitive to ALAN later in the season. These results emphasize the importance of temporal dynamics in coupled plant-soil systems. We suggest that soil and plant responses serve as reciprocal references upon which to gauge ecosystem responses to global change.
| Status Group | Senior Scientist |
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