AN ENHANCED STUDY OF CLIMATE WARMING ON SOIL ORGANIC CARBON TRANSFORMATION USING INTEGRATED DATA-MODEL APPROACH

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: EVANS-ALLEN
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1005761
• Project Start Date: Mar 1, 2015
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2018
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY
3500 JOHN A. MERRITT BLVD
NASHVILLE,TN 37209

Performing Department
Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Non Technical Summary
Humans are changing Earth's climate and global surface air temperature has increased by about 1°C since 1900, and another 2~6°C is expected at the end of this century even if anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions stopped immediately. This major climate warming is disruptive to human society and natural ecosystems that support human society. While accurate predictions of climate change have remained elusive. Because of the strong link between concentrations of atmospheric CO2-C and Earth's climate warming, understanding the drivers of biogeochemical transformations of soil carbon and CO2 release has become a research priority.In spite of continuously increasing volume of experimental data collections, studies however are insufficient to employ statistical and synthetic approaches to comprehensively extract useful information from a wide range of datasets. It is also extremely rare to integrate data and model and via such an integration to inform both future data collection and model projection. The state-of-the-art technological development and supercomputing capacity enable us to synthesize and integrate data and quantitative model together in order to facilitate our exploration of the critical biogeochemical issues. This proposed study will not only conduct field and laboratory experiments but also employ quantitative modeling and data synthesis approaches to elucidate soil transformation under warmer temperature.

Animal Health Component

10%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

75%

Applied

10%

Developmental

15%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
132	0110	1000	100%

Knowledge Area
132 - Weather and Climate;

Subject Of Investigation
0110 - Soil;

Field Of Science
1000 - Biochemistry and biophysics;

Keywords

climate change

soil carbon transformation

microbial feedback

model-data integration

Goals / Objectives
The proposed research is expected to:achieve day- to year-long experimental results of warming and stoichiometric (C:N) controls on soil microbial biomass, extracellular enzyme activities, heterotrophic respiration rate and δ13C of respired CO2-C;conduct comprehensive literature review and data collection on short-term and long-term soil decay dynamics from laboratory soil incubation, litterbag experiment, field warming experiment, and cross-site synthesis of kinetic parameters of carbon and nitrogen relevant enzymatic dynamics;tune first-order decay model and nonlinear microbial-enzyme models using observational data collected from this proposed warming experiment and literature review;implement DA approach to achieve maximum likelihood estimate and confidence interval of MGE and other key microbial parameters by integrating the collected datasets and different models.

Project Methods
This proposed study will not only conduct field and laboratory experiments but also employ quantitative modeling and data synthesis approaches to elucidate soil transformation under warmer temperature. Our general approach is first to establish a laboratory warming experiment and incubate soil samples under different temperatures to simulate climate warming on soil C dynamics and CO2 emission. The laboratory experiments focusing microbial processes will be used for model calibration and data assimilation. Literature review will be conducted and the datasets will be analyzed using meta-analysis approach.Analytical equipment and supercomputing facilities are required in order to conduct hands-on measurement and computer model simulation as well as data-model integration. The proposed project requires key analytical equipments that are not yet available in the college or university. Piccaro 2131-i will be used to measure total concentration and d13C of CO2.We will apply repeated measure ANOVA (PROC MIXED, SAS, Cary, NC, USA) to assess the main effects of temperature, moisture, and their interaction on soil respiration rate, δ13C of respired CO2, microbial biomass and EEA for multiple enzymes during the incubation. A synthetic approach based on a meta-analysis method will be applied to specifically analyze soil microbial biomass, extracellular enzyme activities, enzymatic kinetic parameter, maximum reaction rate constant and MGE. The mean and 95% confidence interval will be achieved. After better parameters values are achieved, they will be applied in model projections over short- to long-term time periods.

Progress 03/01/15 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences include researchers, professionals, students and local residents during the reporting period. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provided the following opportunities for training and professional development: 1. By establishing the field and laboratory warming experiment/facilities, the faculty and students learned the techniques and acquired the capacities to collaborate with each other and with other faculty and staff members within the department and the university wide; 2. By conducting the DA approach successfully, the faculty and students were able to work with high frequency and large datasets integrated with models through computer code programming through the lab server and office PC; 3. By outreaching the local residents and students at other universities, the faculty has strenghthened the service of the university to the local communities How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?1. The professional meetings that students and the faculty attended in international, national and local levels; 2. The peer-reviewed publications received full text request, high citations and inquiry from the scientific communities from different regions and countries; 3. The faculty was invited to give seminars and lectures to other universities; 4. The faculty was invited to write a method article about soil sampling protocol for the Journal of Visualized Experiments. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the reporting period, the following goals were accomplished: 1. The incubation data were analyzed and published in top tier peer-reviewed journal articles (Li et al., 2017, GCBB; Li et al., 2018a, SR) 2. A comprehensive literature review of soil respiration and extracellular enzymes were accomplished and published in top-tier peer-reviewed journal article (Chen et al., 2018) 3. The model parts were under progress. My PhD student is working on two manuscripts that will be based on the model results 4. A manuscript applying the proposed DA approach was published intop tier peer-reviewed journal article (Li et al., 2018b, GCB). The incubation data was being integrated with models (#3) via the same DA approach.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Li J, S Jian, J de Koff, C Lane, G Wang, M Mayes, D Hui. 2018. Differential effects of nitrogen fertilization and warming on soil respiration and microbial dynamics in switchgrass croplands. Global Change Biology Bioenergy 10:565-576
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Chen J, YQ Luo, P Palacios, J Cao*, M Dacal, X Zhou, J Li*, J Xia, S Niu, H Yang, S Shelton, W Guo, KJV Groenigen.Differential responses of carbon?degrading enzyme activities to warming: Implications for soil respiration. Glob Change Biol. 2018;24:4816⿿4826. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14394 (*Corresponding author).
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Dong W, A Song, X Liu, B Yu, B Wang, Y Lu, Y Li, H Yin, J Li*. F Fan*. 2018. Warming differentially altered multidimensional soil legacy induced by past land use history. Scientific Reports 8: 1546.(*Corresponding author)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Li, J, GS Wang, M Mayes, SD Allison, S Frey, S Zheng, XM Hu, YQ Luo, J Melillo. Reduced carbon use efficiency and increased microbial turnover with soil warming. Global Change Biology. In Press. DOI 10.1111/gcb.14517.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Liang F, J Li*, S Zhang, H Gao, B Wang, X Shi, S Huang, MG Xu. Two-decade long fertilization induced changes in subsurface soil organic carbon stock vary with indigenous site characteristics. Geoderma 337:853-862. (*Corresponding author)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Li J, CL Guo, SY Jian, C Yu, Q Deng, ED Dzantor and D Hui. 2018. Nitrogen fertilization elevated spatial heterogeneity of soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen in Switchgrass and Gammagrass croplands. Scientific Reports 8:1734.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Smith G, A Reginald, D Nandwani, J Li. 2017. Impacts on urbanization: diversity and the symbiotic relationships of rural, urban, and spaces in-between. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology (TSDW): 1-14.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Si HW, XY Wang, L Zhang, L Parnell, B Admed, T LeBoith, T Ansah, L Zhang, J Li, J Ordovas, H Si, D Liu and C Lai. Dietary epicatechin improves survival and delays skeletal muscle degeneration in aged mice. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). The FASEB Journal 0:fj.201800554RR.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Li, J. Sampling Soils in a Heterogeneous Research Plot. J. Vis. Exp. (Pending Publication), e58519, In-press

Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/17

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences include researchers, professionals, students from both TSU and Vanderbilt University, and local residents during the reporting period. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provided the following opportunities for training and professional development: 1. By establishing the field and laboratory warming experiment/facilities, the faculty and students learned the techniques and acquired the capacities to collaborate with each other and with other faculty and staff members within the department and the university wide; 2. By integrating the facilities, the faculty improved his teaching in his undergraduate and graduate classes at TSU. 3. By establishing the lab server, the students were trained in learning computer network, coding and modeling techniques; 3. By outreaching the local residents and students at other universities (i.e. Vanderbilit University), the faculty has strenghthened the service of the university to the local communities. In particular, the faculty provided professional service and consulting to local residents and students in regard to climate change mitigation for crops in Tennessee regions How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?1. The professional meetings that students and the faculty attended in univeristy or national levels; 2. The peer-reviewed publications received full text request, citations and inquiry from the scientific communities; 3. The faculty was invited to give seminars to other universities and institutions. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The plan is to: 1. accomplish the writing up the manuscript and submit them to top journals; 2. implement the data assimilation techinque to promote model simulation and projections; 3. collect other relevant datasets to make the project more comprehensive and applicable for other sites.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the reporting period, the following goals were accomplished: 1. Following the incubation experiment accomplished in the previous year, the data and analysis were accomplished and a manuscript is ready to be submitted to the top tier journal - Global Change Biology-Bioenergy. 2. The goal is completed and the work conducted by my students and me resulted in two peer-reviewed productions; 3. The model is being used for simulations and projections and the data and model integration is being applied.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Li J. CL Guo, SY Jian, C Yu, Q Deng, ED Dzantor and D Hui. 2017. Nitrogen fertilization elevated spatial heterogeneity of soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen in Switchgrass and Gammagrass croplands.Scientific Reports. Accepted. (Impact factor: 4.2)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Smith G, A Reginald, D Nandwani, J Li. 2017. Impacts on urbanization: diversity and the symbiotic relationships of rural, urban, and spaces in-between. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology (TSDW): 1-14.

Progress 10/01/15 to 09/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences include researchers, professionals, students and local residents during the reporting period. Changes/Problems:There are no major changes at this time. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provided the following opportunities for training and professional development: 1. By establishing the field and laboratory warming experiment/facilities, the faculty and students learned the techniques and acquired the capacities to collaborate with each other and with other faculty and staff members within the department and the university wide; 2. By establishing the lab server, the students were trained in learning computer network, coding and modeling techniques; 3. By outreaching the local residents and students at other universities, the faculty has strenghthened the service of the university to the local communities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?1. The professional meetings that students and the faculty attended in univeristy or national levels; 2. The peer-reviewed publications received full text request, citations and inquiry from the scientific communities; 3. The faculty was invited to give seminars to other universities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The plan is to: 1. accomplish the laboratory warming experiment, and given the results, write up the manuscript and submit them to top journals; 2. tune the models and integrate the experimental dataset with the model; 3. implement the data assimilation techinque to promote model simulations.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the reporting period, the following goals were accomplished: 1. The experiment is ongoing and the collected samples have been quantified in their microbial biomass, extracellular enzyme activities, heterotrophic respiration rate and δ13C of respired CO2-C. The experiment is to be completed at the end of this year; 2. The goal is completed and the work conducted by my students and me resulted in two peer-reviewed productions; 3. The model is being tuned currently and to be completed given the completion of the experiment; 4. The DA will have to wait for the completion of the experiment.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Jian S, J Li*, J Chen, G Wang, M Mayes, EK Dzantor, D Hui, and Y Luo. Soil extracellular enzyme activities, soil carbon and nitrogen storage under nitrogen fertilization: A meta-analysis. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 101, 32-43, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2016.07.003 (2016). (Impact factor: 4.151, * Corresponding author)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Chen J, YQ Luo, J Li*, XH Zhou, J Cao*, R Wang*, Y Wang, S, Shelton, Z Jin, L Walker, Z Feng, S Niu, W Feng, S Jian and L Zhou. 2016. Co-stimulation of soil glycosidase activities and soil respiration by nitrogen addition. Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13402. (IF:8.444, * Corresponding author)?

Progress 03/01/15 to 09/30/15

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached by my efforts include: 1. USDA collaborative research unit; 2. Oakridge National Laboratory research staff scientists; 3. Other peer scientistis in the rsearch community; 4. Undergraduate and graduate students, and visiting scholars; 5. Local commnity and residents who are curious about climate change, extreme events, agricultural sustainability, human health and preparation for climate change. Changes/Problems:There are no major changes needed at this point as the research plan is being proceded as designed. Only minor concern is the logistics that are sometimes limited or delayed can significantly slow down the deployment of lab and field experimentations. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?These opportunities for training and professional development include: 1. Graduate students were trained to conduct soil sampling in the field and process soil storage and experiment in the lab; 2. A undergraduate student was trained to process soil sieving and weighing, make solutions and maintain a typical wet chemistry laboratory; 3. Graduate students had the opportunities to train the undergraduate student and learn how to collaborate with other peer students and advisor; 4. All participants in this lab had been trained to measure soil microbial biomass and extracellular enzyme activities and soil respiration as well as δ13C of respired CO2-C; This directly helped these trainees understand climate change and its effects on soil and plants in terrestrial ecosystems; How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results obtained from this research have been disseminated to communities of interest in the following ways: 1. Students and PI made presentations to the peer colleagues at the international conferences such as 100th Ecological Society of American Annual Meeting; 2. Students and PI presented results to the colleagues in the university, college or discussion groups at TSU; 3. PI presented research results and progress to collaborators and administrator in Oakridge National Laboratory; 4. PI was recommended by the Associate Dean for Research to make the presentation to RSP at TSU and visiting Vice President of Oakridge Assocaite University. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?What I plan to do during the next reporting period include: 1. Apply the acquired capacity to conduct comprehensive analysis of soil microbial biomass, extracellular enzyme activities, soil respiration and δ13C of respired CO2-C; 2. Advise my graduate students to finalize literature review and data collection, and prepare to submit at least one manuscript to top tier journals; 3. Accomplish model installation and test runs, and prepare to integrate data with different models to improve long-term projections of soil and ecosystem response to climate warming

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? What have been accomplished or is ongoing include: 1. the current lab has been established with the capacity to quantify soil microbial biomiass, extracellular enzyme activities, heterotrophic respiration rate and δ13C of respired CO2-C; 2. one of my graduate students has accomplished comprehensive literature review and collected soil microbial biomass, extracellular enzyme activity, soil organic carbon data of 59 papers selected from 400 published papers, which have been categoried by incubation period, laboratory vs. field conditions, ecosystem types, soil types, and climate conditions; 3. the current lab has the capacity to conduct quantitative model simulations on recently installed Unix system; some preliminary model calibration and validation is being tested; 4. the current lab is preparing to implement DA approach to integrate data collected from the lab experiment with process based models.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Xia J, S Niu, P Ciais, IA Janssens, J Chen, C Ammann, A Arain, C Ammann, A Arain, PD Blanken, A Cescatti, D Bonal, N Buchmann, PS Curtis, S Chen, J Dong, LB Flanagan, C Frankenberg, T Georgiadis, CM Gough, D Hui, G Kiely, J Li and 20 others. Joint control of terrestrial gross primary productivity by plant phenology and physiology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112 (9), 2788-2793 (IF: 9.674)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Xie HT, J Li*, B Zhang, L Wang, J Wang, H He, X Zhang. 2015. Long-term manure amendments reduced soil aggregate stability via redistribution of the glomalin-related soil protein in macroaggregates. Scientific Reports. In Press. (IF: 5.578, * Corresponding author)
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Jian SY, Li J*, Chen J, Hui D, Luo YQ. (2015). A meta-analysis of N addition on soil extracellular enzyme activities and soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics. August 8-14, 2015. 100th Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD. (* presenter and corresponding author)
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Celada S*, J Li** and other coauthors. 2015. Climate warming elevated laccase gene abundance and diversity along a boreal climate transect. (In Preparation to submit to Soil Biology and Biochemistry) (* student author; ** corresponding author)