Project description:Fire disturbances are becoming more common, more intense, and further-reaching across the globe, with consequences for ecosystem functioning. Importantly, fire can have strong effects on the soil microbiome, including community and functional changes after fire, but surprisingly little is known regarding the role of soil fire legacy in shaping responses to recent fire. To address this gap, we conducted a manipulative field experiment administering fire across 32 soils with varying fire legacies, including combinations of 1-7 historic fires and 1-33 years since most recent fire. We analyzed soil metatranscriptomes, determining for the first time how fire and fire legacy interactively affect metabolically-active soil taxa, the microbial regulation of important carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycling, expression of carbohydrate-cycling enzyme pathways, and functional gene co-expression networks. Experimental fire strongly downregulated fungal activity while upregulating many bacterial and archaeal phyla. Further, fire decreased soil capacity for microbial C and N cycling and P transport, and drastically rewired functional gene co-expression. Perhaps most importantly, we highlight a novel role of soil fire legacy in regulation of microbial C, N, and P responses to recent fire. We observed a greater number of functional genes responsive to the interactive effects of fire and fire legacy than those affected solely by recent fire, indicating that many functional genes respond to fire only under certain fire legacy contexts. Therefore, without incorporating fire legacy of soils, studies will miss important ways that fire shapes microbial roles in ecosystem functioning. Finally, we showed that fire caused significant downregulation of carbon metabolism and nutrient cycling genes in microbiomes under abnormal soil fire histories, producing a novel warning for the future: human manipulation of fire legacies, either indirectly through global change-induced fire intensification or directly through fire suppression, can negatively impact soil microbiome functional responses to new fires.

Project description:Background: Phenotypic plasticity refers to the range of phenotypes a single genotype can express as a function of its environment. These phenotypic variations are attributable to the effect of the environment on the expression and function of genes influencing plastic traits. We investigated phenotypic plasticity in grapevine by comparing the berry transcriptome in a single clone of the vegetatively-propagated common grapevine species Vitis vinifera cultivar Corvina through three consecutive growth years cultivated in 11 different vineyards in the Verona area of Italy. Results: Most of the berry transcriptome clustered by year of growth rather than common environmental conditions or viticulture practices, and transcripts related to secondary metabolism showed high sensitivity towards different climates, as confirmed also by metabolomic data obtained from the same samples. When analyzed in 11 vineyards during one growth year, the environmentally-sensitive berry transcriptome comprised 5% of protein-coding genes and 18% of the transcripts modulated during berry development. Plastic genes were particularly enriched in ontology categories such as transcription factors, translation, transport and secondary metabolism. Specific plastic transcripts were associated with groups of vineyards sharing common viticulture practices or environmental conditions, and plastic transcriptome reprogramming was more intense in the year characterized by extreme weather conditions. We also identified a set of genes that lacked plasticity, showing either constitutive expression or similar modulation in all berries. Conclusions: Our data reveal candidate genes potentially responsible for the phenotypic plasticity of grapevine and provide the first step towards the characterization of grapevine transcriptome plasticity under different agricultural systems. Vitis vinifera cultivar Corvina clone 48 berries were harvested from different vineyards, each located in one of the three most important wine production macro-areas of the Verona region: Bardolino, Valpolicella and Soave, on the basis of the site geographical coordinates. For each of the selected vineyards, specific environmental conditions (altitude and type of soil) and farming and agricultural practices used (training system, rows facing direction, planting layout, vineyard age and rootstock type) were recorded. Vineyards were selected in order to maximize differences in locations and in microenvironmental and farming conditions. Berries were harvested at three different developmental stages: véraison, mid-ripening and harvest; each sample was collected in three biological replicates, to cover the whole vineyard variability. The same sampling procedure had been repeated over three consecutive vintages (2006, 2007 and 2008).

Dataset Information

Undefined

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets