Contrasting Soil pH Effects on Fungal and Bacterial Growth Suggest Functional Redundancy in Carbon Mineralization

The influence of pH on the relative importance of the two principal decomposer groups in soil, fungi and bacteria, was investigated along a continuous soil pH gradient at Hoosfield acid strip at Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom. This experimental location provides a uniform pH gradient, ranging from pH 8.3 to 4.0, within 180 m in a silty loam soil on which barley has been continuously grown for more than 100 years. We estimated the importance of fungi and bacteria directly by measuring acetate incorporation into ergosterol to measure fungal growth and leucine and thymidine incorporation to measure bacterial growth. The growth-based measurements revealed a fivefold decrease in bacterial growth and a…

• V
  Vetenskapsrådet
• KF
  Kungliga Fysiografiska Sällskapet i Lund
• DF
  Directorate for Biological Sciences