UGRASS

U-GRASS UNDERSTANDING AND ENHANCING SOIL
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND RESILIENCE IN UK GRASS AND
CROPLANDS
Rob Griffiths
CEH Wallingford
rig@ceh.ac.uk

Soil bacterial diversity correlates with soil &
ecosystem properties
LowpHMedpHHighpH
Griffiths et al, Env. Microbiol 2011
UK Countryside Survey 2007
Henrys et al, Ecography 2014

New knowledge of distributions and environmental
regulators of many bacterial taxa....
....and Eukaryotes (protists,fungi, worms, TwLs)
Data: South West Survey, Griffiths et al unpublished
Next gen
sequencing

New Functional genetic indicators– whole genome metagenomics
N2 fixation
Ammonification
Denitrification
Low pH High pHFunctional indicators

ECOFINDERS: ASSESSING IMPACTS OF LAND USE INTENSITY
ON SOIL BIODIVERSITY AND FUNCTIONALITY
•5 study sites selected, each comprising a gradient of land use intensity
Suite of measures applied to
interrogate land use effects
on biodiversity and
functionality
Are there universal
indicators of land use
intensification?

Fen, Marsh, Swamp to Bog
Broadleaved Woodland to Shrub Heath
Fen, Marsh, Swamp to Acid Grassland
Fen, Marsh, Swamp to Improved Grassland
Improved Grassland to Arable
Bog to Acid Grassland
Neutral Grassland to Improved Grassland
Urban to Improved Grassland
oadleaved Woodland to Coniferous Woodland
Shrub Heath to Bog
Neutral Grassland to Arable
Fen, Marsh, Swamp to Neutral Grassland
Shrub Heath to Acid Grassland
Broadleaved Woodland to Arable
Broadleaved Woodland to Improved Grassland
Broadleaved Woodland to Neutral Grassland
Coniferous Woodland to Arable
Acid Grassland to Neutral Grassland
Coniferous Woodland to Neutral Grassland
Coniferous Woodland to Improved Grassland
Shrub Heath to Neutral Grassland
Bracken to Neutral Grassland
Acid Grassland to Improved Grassland
Shrub Heath to Improved Grassland
0.80.60.40.20.0
NMDS scores
Broadleaved Woodland to Coniferous Woodland
Shrub Heath to Bog
1.51.00.50.0-0.5
pH
Shrub Heath to Bog
100-10-20-30-40
LOI (%)
Shrub Heath to Bog
0.80.60.40.20.0
Shannon's D
Shrub Heath to Bog
5.02.50.0-2.5-5.0-7.5-10.0-12.5
C:N Ratio
Effect of land use on biodiversity and soil properties
BACKGROUND: 614 land use transitions constrained within 1km2
Habitat context is important for understanding
magnitude of soil change due to land use
Does the magnitude of change in soil biotic
properties relate to soil ecosystem services
across productive ecosystems?

IMPORTANCE OF HABITAT CONTEXT: Indicators of intensification
Calcareous Grasslands v Intense
Salisbury Plain
BGS “Tellus” SW Project
www.tellusgb.ac.uk/
” NERC “WESSEX BESS Project
www.brc.ac.uk/wessexbess
Acid “Culm” Grasslands v Intense
North Devon
bradyrhizobia;
bradyrhizobia;
Acid Calcareous

INDICATOR RELEVANCE
• For policymakers & monitoring
• Understanding & predicting soil
processes:
Persistence of soil organic matter as an
ecosystem property
Schmidt et al, Nature 2011 Global soil carbon projections are improved by modelling
microbial processes
Wieder et al Nature Clim. Change 2013
Consistent effects of nitrogen amendments on soil
microbial communities and processes across biomes Ramirez et al, GCB
2012
Plant soil interactions alter carbon cycling in upland grassland soil
Thomson et al, Frontiers Terrestrial Microbiol 2013

Understanding and enhancing soil ecosystem
services and resilience in UK grass and croplands
Consortia:
• Rob Griffiths, Richard Pywell, Jeanette Whitaker,
Niall McNamara (CEH)
• Nick Ostle (UL)
• Pete Smith (UA)
• Penny Hirsch (RR))
• Tom Bell (ICL)
Hypotheses :
•Soil biodiversity is linked to soil
functionality
•Change in soil biodiversity is related to
change in soil services
•Magnitude of change varies under
different soil, climatic and land use
contexts
Approach :
•Survey paired “natural” v intensified sites distributed across
UK.
•Quantify impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and
resilience to climate change
•Assess mitigation efficacy with novel management &
restoration practice
•Novel mesocosm and microcosm experiments to directly test
functional consequences of land use impacts on soil
biodiversity

Scaling&prediction
Mechanistic understanding
Adaptation to change
Field patterns & relationships
WP1: Survey of soil biodiversity
& multiple ES in experiments &
land use transitions
Plan of Research
Underpinningbiodiversityresponses
WP2: Mesocosms to test
resilience of soil biodiversity &
function to change
WP3: C cycling mechanisms
WP4: Biodiversity mechanisms
WP5:ProcessandSpatialmodellingofES:scalingand
scenariotesting
Soiltaxonomicandfunctionaldiversity
Outputs
• Datasets: Soil properties,
biodiversity, services, and R-R
responses in dispersed land
use contrasts
• Functional relationships
between soil biodiversity &
ecosystem services at various
scales
• Integrated modelling of
multiple soil ecosystem
services under environmental
change scenarios
• New indicators for use in
scientific and policy context
• Scientific understanding &
prediction to underpin future
land management policies
Methodologies:
Survey land use transitions and novel management
High throughput sequencing of soil food web and functional genes
Soil functional assays Isotope tracers linking diversity and functional change
Mesocosm resilience experiments Microcosm diversity tests
New integrating Modelling approaches

• ~30 paired sites
• Some sites with
“interventions”
• UK wide coverage
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Measurements:
- 7.5 x 15 cm cores
- Soil biodiversity (16S, 18S, N
cycling genes, whole genome
assays)
- Soil properties
- Soil functions (enzyme assays, SIR)
- Resistance-resilience (WP2)
Intense“Pristine”
WP1 Field survey relationships biodiversity, soil services and land use
intensification
Richard Pywell Rob Griffiths Penny Hirsch Ian Clark

WP 2. relationships between biodiversity and resistance-resilience (R-R)
responses with land management
How? climate perturbation experiment
using field and monolith manipulation
comparing grassland-arable management
intensity contrasts (WP1) on a range of soil
types.
Hypothesis: Soils with higher diversity and
organic matter content will have greater R-R of
multiple soil functions to acute climate change Jeanette
Whitaker
Niall
McNamara
Nick Ostle
Hazelrigg field site Mesocosms Manipulation
Measurements: Greenhouse gas fluxes, soil
properties, Molecular biodiversity, activity
assays, PLFA’s, Isotope tracers to link
diversity & process
1.Resistance and Resilience
experiment (SOM x drought
factors)
2. Resistance and
Resilience experiment
(Disturbance x drought x
warming).

WP 3. Resource regulation of soil functions and their resistance-
resilience to global change
Objective: Understand how land management affects C storage
processes and their resistance/resilience to environmental
disturbance
How?
1. Incubations of soil from grassland-arable
management intensity contrasts using 13C
and 15N isotope tracers.
2. Test the effects of resource quality on
microbial resistance/resilience combining
13PLFA and Raman microscopy techniques in
soil incubations.
Kelly Mason
Jeanette
Whitaker
Niall
McNamara
Methods and metrics:
Microbial substrate incorporation (13C PLFAs)
Extracellular enzyme activity
Microbial growth
Raman microscopy
Carbon use efficiency
Nutrient stoichiometry
Drought perturbation
Hypothesis: Organic matter accumulation
processes are more resilient to perturbation in
low management intensity soils

WP 4. Determining biotic and abiotic regulation of soil services
under different management intensity
Objective: Determine explicit role of altered microbial
biodiversity in regulating soil services
How?
Microcosm manipulation of microbial
diversity
1. Test communities in isolation from
soil properties for R-R responses to
drought and invasibility
2. Augmentation – test if services can
be restored in poorly performing
soils by augmenting with ‘better’
performing communities
Tom Bell
Maaike van
Agtmaal
14
Caveats: We acknowledge several important caveats to the microcosm experiments, including: (1)
soils will be homogenised and sieved to ensure each microcosm receives the same soil, which will
remove the physical structure and chemical heterogeneity of the original soils; (2) any sterilisation
technique will make some
alterations to the chemical
environment even if only by
releasing organic material
associated with dead cells killed
during the sterilisation procedure.
However, we believe research on
the mechanisms described here
requires manipulation of
communities that are closed to
immigration inoculated into a
common soil environment;
microcosms are currently the only
feasible option.
Figure 7. Demonstration of the efficacy of the soil wash approach. TRFLP
analyses of a soil bacterial community (top left) and a wash of the same soil
(bottom left). Bars are the relative abundance of each taxon (fragment size in
base pairs). Plotting the relative abundances (right panel) of soil (y axis) and soil
wash (x-axis) shows a strong correlation (R2
= 0.87).

WP 5. Modelling
Objectives:
1. Use data on soil indicators to enhance soil processes
models for wider soil ecosystems services
2. Develop a spatial modelling tool to predict soil services
under different land management and climatic scenarios.
Use U-GRASS field data, simulation, and national scale
datasets
Pete Smith Matthias Kuhnert

Thank you!
U-GRASS Consortia @SSP_UGRASS
Reading Soil Security Programme Team
Funders

Hypotheses
H1. Increasing management intensity reduces OM accumulation due to differences in
microbial carbon use efficiency driven by the nutrient stoichiometry of SOM and plant-C
inputs.
H2. Organic matter accumulation processes are more resilient to perturbation in low
management intensity soils due to trade-offs in microbial carbon allocation.
Methods and metrics:
Microbial substrate incorporation (13C PLFAs)
Extracellular enzyme activity
Microbial growth
Raman microscopy
Carbon use efficiency
Nutrient stoichiometry

Hypotheses
1. Mesocosm Resistance and Resilience experiment (SOM x drought factors)
2. Field plot Resistance and Resilience experiment (Disturbance x drought x
warming).
H1. Soils with higher diversity and organic matter content will have greater adaptive
capacity and thus R-R of multiple soil functions to acute climate change.
H2. Interactions between acute climate and physical disturbance will determine the stability
(R-R) of soil diversity (invertebrate and microbial) and key macronutrient and carbon cycling
functions.

Hazelrigg Grassland Experiment
‘Manipulative Experimental Platform’
- (on an existing long term permanent pasture.
- managed as a sheep-grazed permanent
pasuture >20 years (vegetation classification
NVC MG3)
- a well developed LFH/A/B horizon profile
with good physical structure
- and has a long-term Met. Office weather
monitoring facility, MAT = 11 °C; precip.~
1400 mm

From Defra:
Evidence gaps and priorities for new research:
Soil quality indicators and ecosystem services
Soil degradation
Sustainable soils / Aspirational soil quality targets
Soil management practices
Economic value of ecosystem services
Recent Interest from UK Policy makers

Recent Interest from UK Policy makers
Soil quality indicators and ecosystem services
Can we benchmark indicators for the delivery of ecosystem services or specific soil
functions?
How can indicator values be interpreted with respect to ecosystem service delivery?
Are there any indicators that can detect change in ecosystem delivery within a policy
cycle?
What is the practicality of different approaches?
Are there any established envelopes of normality for SQI’s?
What do changes in soil biodiversity and soil C content mean for ecosystem service
delivery?
Soil degradation
At what point do degradation processes significantly affect soil quality
and function?
How is soil degradation best measured and can any tipping points for soil
function and the delivery of the key ecosystem services be identified?
How is climate change likely to affect soil degradation processes?
Sustainable soils / Aspirational soil quality targets
What properties should a sustainable soil have?
What targets should we have for soil quality?
Is there a model for sustainable soils to deliver the key ecosystem
services?
What effect may climate change have on aspirational soil quality
targets?Soil management practices
How should soil be managed to achieve sustainability?
What do we mean by a sustainably managed soil and how do we
measure it?
What level of intervention is needed to reach the target of sustainably
managed soil?
How does soil management impact on soil quality?
How do different soil types respond to management practices and do
they still have capacity to store more soil C?
Can soil biodiversity be manipulated to improve ecosystem service
delivery?
How may climate change affect the choice of soil management measures
to achieve sustainability?
Economic value of ecosystem services
What is the economic value of the key ecosystem services provided by sustainably
managed soils?
Do we fully understand how soil management relates to soil function to accurately
quantify this?
What work has been done to assess the relative cost and societal benefit of soil
management interventions?

• £10 million research initiative which aims to secure future soil quality to sustain ecosystems
and the services they deliver to people - such as food production , flood prevention, carbon
storage and clean water.
• funded jointly by the Biological and Biotechnology Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural
Environment Research Council (NERC), with co-funding from the Scottish Government, and
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA):
http://www.soilsecurity.org

WP1 Issues
• Good number of sites identified in South – need
more Northern represntatives
• Planned sampling summer 2015 – delayed to
autumn 2015. Issues for other WPs?
• Functional measures?
• Data requirements for models?

UGRASS

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