GRADCATCH - Using natural environmental GRADients to decipher the adaptation of soil microbial Communities to climATe CHange

Climate change has large effects on most biomes on Earth. This includes effects on soil microorganisms and their activity, which in turn may affect the release of greenhouse gases and the turnover of nutrients important to plants. Despite their importance, these effects are poorly understood by the scientific community. The overall aim of GRADCATCH is to unravel the effects of climate change at regional and global scales on soil microorganisms and their feedbacks on climate. To accomplish this, GRADCATCH will study trans-continental natural gradients in aridity, latitude and altitude.

The main objectives of GRADCATCH are to:

1. understand short- and long-term adaptation and susceptibility of soil microbial diversity and functions to climate change, such as variations in soil water availability and temperature,
2. identify phylogenetic and functional soil microbial indicators of climate change, and
3. generate robust data for modelling of climate-soil biodiversity feedback processes, mainly production and consumption of the greenhouse gases CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O.

GRADCATCH will assess how soil microbial abundance, diversity, activity and functions change along four natural gradients, i) a trans-continental latitudinal gradient from the extreme high Arctic in North Greenland through low Arctic to boreal and temperate Europe, ii) an altitudinal gradient in the Swiss Alps, and iii) two aridity gradients, one from the humid NW to the arid SE Spain and one from humid to arid biomes in South Africa. This encompasses sampling 70 field sites. In addition, we will perform in situ soil transplantation experiments along the four gradients and in silico laboratory experiments on soil microcosms to investigate the short-term (one year) effects of predicted climate change.

In the field, we will measure the fluxes of CO₂, CH₄ and _N2O. In the laboratory, we will employ DNA- and RNA-based methods as well as assays of enzyme activity to investigate how soil microbial diversity and activity link to predicted climate change scenarios. In addition, we will use our data to parameterise computer models of microbial functioning and response to climate change.

We expect that the data generated by GRADCATCH will have an impact beyond the scientific community. Thus, we will engage a number of stakeholders in the planning of our experiments and in the interpretation of the data generated. We hope that the involvement of stakeholders from local communities, NGOs, government departments and policy makers will enhance knowledge transfer and that the data generated will improve regulations in order to mitigate the effects of climate change.

GRADCATCH is a collaboration between University of Copenhagen, Denmark; University of Girona, Spain; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Switzerland; University of Pretoria, South Africa; and University of California, Irvine, US.

GRADCATCH is funded by the BiodivClim COFUND Action BiodivERsA supporting research on “Biodiversity and climate change”. Thus, GRADCATCH is co-funded by the European Commission and four national funding agencies: Innovationsfonden (DK), xx (ES), xx (CH), and xx (SA).

Work in progress...