The trade-off between stronggrowth ratestrong and yield in microbial.pdfVIP

Biogeochemistry DOI 10.1007/s10533-008-9252-1 The trade-off between growth rate and yield in microbial communities and the consequences for under-snow soil respiration in a high elevation coniferous forest David A. Lipson Æ Russell K. Monson Æ Steven K. Schmidt Æ Michael N. Weintraub Received: 7 May 2008 / Accepted: 3 October 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008 Abstract Soil microbial respiration is a critical had higher growth rates and lower yields than fungi, component of the global carbon cycle, but it is overall, suggesting a more important role for bacteria uncertain how properties of microbes affect this in determining Rh . The dominant bacteria from process. Previous studies have noted a thermodynamic laboratory-incubated soil differed seasonally: faster- trade-off between the rate and efficiency of growth in growing, cold-adapted Janthinobacterium species heterotrophic organisms. Growth rate and yield deter- dominated in winter and slower-growing, mesophilic mine the biomass-specific respiration rate of growing Burkholderia and Variovorax species dominated in microbial populations, but these traits have not summer. Modeled Rh was sensitive to microbial previously been used to scale from microbial commu- kinetics and Q10: a sixfold lower annual Rh resulted nities to ecosystems. Here we report seasonal variation from using kinetic parameters from summer versus in microbial growth kinetics and temperature winter communities. Under the most realistic scenario responses (Q10) in a coniferous forest soil, relate these using seasonally changing communities, the model properties to cultured and uncultured soil microbes, estimated Rh at 22.67 mol m-2 year-1, or 47.0% of and model the effects