ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1684321
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobiome for Abiotic Stress ResilienceView all articles
Adaptation and resistance of prokaryotic communities in soils under old-growth forest and pasture to drought intensification
Provisionally accepted
Elisa Diaz Garcia1*
Diana Boy2
Simone Kilian Salas3
Alberto Andrino1
Leopold Sauheitl1
Anja Poehlein4
Georg Guggenberger1
Marcus A. Horn2
Jens Boy1- 1Leibniz Universitat Hannover Institut fur Erdsystemwissenschaften, Hanover, Germany
- 2Leibniz Universitat Hannover Institut fur Mikrobiologie, Hanover, Germany
- 3Rheinland-Pfalzische Technische Universitat Kaiserslautern-Landau Institut fur Umweltwissenschaften, Landau, Germany
- 4Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen, Göttingen, Germany
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Climate change is predicted to intensify droughts in tropical regions impacting the overall water budget and vegetation. However, the extent to which drought intensification and the subsequent changes in root exudate (RE) composition alter the structure of the soil prokaryotic community (SPC) remains poorly understood. We conducted a 69-day incubation experiment to determine the effects of repeated exposure to severe drought and RE application on the SPC activity and structure in soils under old-growth forests and pastures from southwestern Amazonia. At the beginning of each cycle, the incubation units received either artificial RE solution or sterile water. After each drying period, units were either kept at 30% water holding capacity (WHC) for 18 days, representing the regional WHC in the dry season, or at 5% WHC, simulating severe drought. Drought intensity and RE availability were the primary drivers of changes in SPC composition and activity. The lowest prokaryotic diversity values were observed in the severe drought treatment with +RE addition for both land-uses. After wetting, +RE treatments showed higher SPC activity due to the utilization of the supplemented REs. Carbon availability interacted with land-use specific characteristics and partially buffered drought effects on SPC composition in pastures. The SPCs of both land-uses were well-adapted to the regional drought conditions. However, repeated exposure to severe droughts caused significant community shifts towards dominance of a few drought-resistant families, highlighting the vulnerability of tropical soils to changes in the precipitation patterns and their potential impact on ecosystem stability and soil functions.
Keywords: Drying-rewetting, land use, root exudates, Soil prokaryotic community, Soil respiration
Received: 12 Aug 2025; Accepted: 09 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Diaz Garcia, Boy, Kilian Salas, Andrino, Sauheitl, Poehlein, Guggenberger, Horn and Boy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Elisa Diaz Garcia, diazgarcia@ifbk.uni-hannover.de
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