Soil trenching – are microbial communities alike in experimental peatland plots measuring total and heterotrophic respiration?
Soil trenching is a generally applied method used to differentiate heterotrophic respiration (R HET ) from total respiration in soil CO 2 flux data collection. However, the soil microbial community composition may change due to trenching and estimates of the impacts of any human-induced disturbance on R HET might be inflated if the microbial community involved was not the same as in the ambient untrenched environment. Here, we report that the bacterial and fungal community, as measured by amplicon sequencing, of 30 different research sites in peatland forests was mostly alike in trenched and untrenched plots still four years after trenching. Soil trenching thus seems to be a feasible method to study the R HET from peatland forest soils from the overall microbial community composition point of view as no major changes were observed. • Microbial diversity does not change in four years after trenching in peatland forest. • Peat soil bacterial and fungal communities do not react fast to trenching. • Trenching do not alter peat soil fungal community with different ecological roles.
Authors
- Kaido Soosaar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1261-6326)
- Arta Bārdule (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0961-5119)
- Aldis Butlers (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3118-1716)
- Thomas Schindler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3095-8677)
- Andis Lazdiņš (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7169-2011)
- Ain Kull (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7534-3927)
- Dovilė Čiuldienė (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0222-3059)
- Muhammad Kamil-Sardar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9384-5672)
- Krista Peltoniemi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3547-0654)
- Raija Laiho (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7767-8520)
- Valters Samariks (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9953-0455)
- Hannu Fritze (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4347-4444)
- Egidijus Vigricas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5214-9937)
- Jyrki Jauhiainen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7023-859X)
Institutions
- Natural Resources Institute Finland (FI)
- Latvian State Forest Research Institute "Silava" (LV)
- Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry (LT)
- University of Tartu (EE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Soil Biology and Biochemistry
- Published
- 2025-02-13
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2025.109747
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Peatlands and Wetlands Ecology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.72
Funders
- European Commission