PARENT SESSION
Symposium #2: Linking Aboveground and Belowground Interactions: Emerging Perspectives on the Feedbacks Between Plant and Soil Communities.

Organized by: SD Frey, J Lussenhop, and D Porazinska
Monday, August 5. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Turquoise Ballroom, TCC.

Carbon cycling and global change: The impacts and role of soil biodiversity.

INESON, PHIL^*,1, ¹ Stockholm Environment Institute, York, Yorkshire, UK

ABSTRACT- Carbon stores in terrestrial systems are dominated by the soil component. The responses of ecosystem C stores to warming, elevated CO₂ and other global changes may be strongly influenced by the responses of the heterotrophic component. I shall provide examples of how soil biota have responded in ecosystem manipulation experiments, with a demonstration that these responses may have important consequences for the whole system. Novel laboratory and in situ techniques will be described which utilise recent developments in the application of stable isotopes in ecological studies, specifically relating soil organisms to function. Results from the application of ¹³C labelling techniques to unravel soil trophic interactions and carbon dynamics will be presented, describing what happens when bacteria, collembola and molecules of RNA are labelled with the heavy isotopes of carbon.

KEY WORDS: climate, soil, fauna, microorganisms