Microplastics in soils have become an important threat for terrestrial systems as they may potentially alter the geochemical/biophysical soil environment and can interact with drought. As ...microplastics may affect soil water content, this could exacerbate the well‐known negative effects of drought on ecosystem functionality. Thus, functions including litter decomposition, soil aggregation or those related with nutrient cycling can be altered. Despite this potential interaction, we know relatively little about how microplastics, under different soil water conditions, affect ecosystem functions and multifunctionality.
To address this gap, we performed an experiment using grassland plant communities growing in microcosms. Microplastic fibres (absent, present) and soil water conditions (well‐watered, drought) were applied in a fully factorial design. At harvest, we measured soil ecosystem functions related to nutrient cycling (β‐glucosaminidase, β‐D‐cellobiosidase, phosphatase, β‐glucosidase enzymes), respiration, nutrient retention, pH, litter decomposition and soil aggregation (water stable aggregates). As terrestrial systems provide these functions simultaneously, we also assessed ecosystem multifunctionality, an index that encompasses the array of ecosystem functions measured here.
We found that the interaction between microplastic fibres and drought affected ecosystem functions and multifunctionality. Drought had negatively affected nutrient cycling by decreasing enzymatic activities by up to ~39%, while microplastics increased soil aggregation by ~18%, soil pH by ~4% and nutrient retention by up to ~70% by diminishing nutrient leaching. Microplastic fibres also impacted soil enzymes, respiration and ecosystem multifunctionality, but importantly, the direction of these effects depended on soil water status. That is, under well‐watered conditions, these functions decreased with microplastic fibres by up to ~34% while under drought they had similar values irrespective of the microplastic presence, or tended to increase with microplastics. Litter decomposition had a contrary pattern increasing with microplastics by ~6% under well‐watered conditions while decreasing to a similar percentage under drought.
Synthesis and applications. Single ecosystem functions can be positively or negatively affected by microplastics fibres depending on soil water status. However, our results suggest that microplastic fibres may cause negative effects on ecosystem soil multifunctionality of a similar magnitude as drought. Thus, strategies to counteract this new global change factor are necessary.
Single ecosystem functions can be positively or negatively affected by microplastics fibres depending on soil water status. However, our results suggest that microplastic fibres may cause negative effects on ecosystem soil multifunctionality of a similar magnitude as drought. Thus, strategies to counteract this new global change factor are necessary.
Drought can strongly modify plant diversity and ecosystem processes. As droughts are expected to intensify in the future, it is important to better understand plant responses to this global driver. ...Root traits are an overlooked but powerful predictor of plant responses to drought because they are in direct contact with the soil environment and are responsible for taking up nutrients and water.
Here, we determine which root traits are sensitive to drought and the magnitude of that response. We also tested whether root trait relationships with shoot biomass are affected by drought and to what extent all these responses depend on plant species identity. To do so, we conducted a glasshouse experiment with 24 plant species grown in pots (10 replicates per species), which included grasses, forbs and legumes. All replicates were well watered during the first month and then half of them were kept under drought (30% water holding capacity WHC), with the other half serving as control (70% WHC). After 2 months of treatment, leaf and root traits were measured.
Leaf traits had a strong and more uniform response to drought compared to root traits. Root trait responses were variable and differed among plant species. Overall, grasses and several forbs had increased root diameter with drought while forbs had decreased specific root surface area (SRSA) and specific root length (SRL). Increase of root diameter and reduction of root elongation or sacrificing fine roots are different strategies that may promote nutrient and water acquisition, depending on plant species identity.
Our results identify changes in root morphological traits as mechanisms to likely tolerate drought and highlight that, although such drought responses are species‐specific, they are phylogenetically clustered.
A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Soils underpin terrestrial ecosystem functions, but they face numerous anthropogenic pressures. Despite their crucial ecological role, we know little about how soils react to more than two ...environmental factors at a time. Here, we show experimentally that increasing the number of simultaneous global change factors (up to 10) caused increasing directional changes in soil properties, soil processes, and microbial communities, though there was greater uncertainty in predicting the magnitude of change. Our study provides a blueprint for addressing multifactor change with an efficient, broadly applicable experimental design for studying the impacts of global environmental change.
Summary
Root traits respond to drought in a species‐specific manner, but little is known about how soil fungal communities and root traits respond to drought in concert.
In a glasshouse experiment, ...we determined the response of soil pathogens, saprotrophs, and mutualistic and all fungi associated with the roots of 24 plant species subjected to drought. At harvest, soil fungal communities were characterized by sequencing. Data on root traits were extracted from a previously published work.
Differences in fungal beta diversity between drought and control were plant species specific. For some species, saprotrophic fungi increased in relative abundance and richness with drought, whereas mutualistic fungi showed the opposite pattern. Community structure of pathogenic fungi was plant species specific but was slightly affected by drought.
Pathogen composition was correlated with specific root surface area and root : shoot, saprotroph abundance with root tissue density, whereas mutualist composition was correlated with root : shoot. All these were the fungal attributes that best predicted shoot mass.
Fungal response to drought depended highly on the fungal group and was related to root trait adjustments to water scarcity. This provides new insights into the role that root trait adjustments to drought may have in modulating plant–fungus interactions in grasslands ecosystems.
The multiple faces of CD5 Burgueño‐Bucio, Erica; Mier‐Aguilar, Carlos A.; Soldevila, Gloria
Journal of leukocyte biology,
20/May , Letnik:
105, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Since its discovery, over 30 years ago, CD5 has been used as a marker to identify T cells, B1‐a cells, and B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells. Throughout the years, many studies have described ...the functional relevance of CD5 as a modulator of T and B cell receptor signaling. However, it has not been until recent years that CD5 has emerged as a functional receptor in other areas of the immune system. Here, we review some of the most important aspects of CD5 as a modulator of TCR and BCR signaling, cell survival receptor both in T and B cells during health and disease, as well as the newly discovered roles of this receptor in thymocyte selection, T cell effector differentiation, and immune tolerance. CD5 was found to promote T cell survival by protecting autoreactive T cell from activation‐induced cell death, to promote de novo induction of regulatory T cells in the periphery, to modulate Th17 and Th2 differentiation, and to modulate immune responses by modulating dendritic cell functions. CD5 is overexpressed in Tregs and Bregs, which are fundamental to maintain immune homeostasis. The newly established roles of CD5 in modulating different aspects of immune responses identify this receptor as an immune checkpoint modulator, and therefore it could be used as a target for immune intervention in different pathologies such as cancer, autoimmune diseases or infections.
Review on how CD5 regulates the balance between immunity and tolerance by modulating T/B cell signaling, T/B cell survival and T effector/Treg differentiation.
In terms of its abundance and its minimal toxicity, iron has advantages relative to other transition metals. Although alkyl–alkyl bond construction is central to organic synthesis, examples of ...iron‐catalyzed alkyl–alkyl couplings of alkyl electrophiles are relatively sparse. Herein we report an iron catalyst that achieves cross‐coupling reactions of alkyl electrophiles wherein olefins, in the presence of a hydrosilane, are used in place of alkylmetal reagents. Carbon–carbon bond formation proceeds at room temperature, and the method employs commercially available components (Fe(OAc)2, Xantphos, and Mg(OEt)2); interestingly, this set of reagents can be applied directly to a distinct hydrofunctionalization of olefins, hydroboration. Mechanistic studies are consistent with the generation of an alkyl radical from the alkyl electrophile, as well as with reversibility for elementary steps that precede carbon–carbon bond formation (olefin binding to iron and β‐migratory insertion).
An iron catalyst achieves cross‐coupling reactions of alkyl electrophiles wherein olefins, in the presence of a hydrosilane, are used in place of alkylmetal reagents to form alkyl–alkyl bonds. Mechanistic studies are consistent with the generation of an alkyl radical from the alkyl electrophile, as well as with reversibility for some of the elementary steps that precede carbon–carbon bond formation.
ABSTRACT
Fungi play many essential roles in ecosystems. They facilitate plant access to nutrients and water, serve as decay agents that cycle carbon and nutrients through the soil, water and ...atmosphere, and are major regulators of macro‐organismal populations. Although technological advances are improving the detection and identification of fungi, there still exist key gaps in our ecological knowledge of this kingdom, especially related to function. Trait‐based approaches have been instrumental in strengthening our understanding of plant functional ecology and, as such, provide excellent models for deepening our understanding of fungal functional ecology in ways that complement insights gained from traditional and ‐omics‐based techniques. In this review, we synthesize current knowledge of fungal functional ecology, taxonomy and systematics and introduce a novel database of fungal functional traits (FunFun). FunFun is built to interface with other databases to explore and predict how fungal functional diversity varies by taxonomy, guild, and other evolutionary or ecological grouping variables. To highlight how a quantitative trait‐based approach can provide new insights, we describe multiple targeted examples and end by suggesting next steps in the rapidly growing field of fungal functional ecology.
PDF
