In collaboration with the Global Change Research Group (GCRG) and Cheryl Kuske at LANL, we studied the effects of free air CO2 enrichment (FACE) on soil fungal communities in a chaparral ecosystem. We found that elevated CO2 increased root production, which led to an increase in fungal diversity in these soils. The results were published in Global Change Biology in 2014. This is an update of our study published in 2005, which reported effects of elevated CO2 on microbial biomass, activity and community structure. In the 2005 study, we saw increased root biomass under elevated CO2, and alterations in the functioning of the microbial community. However, the bacterial community was not greatly altered by the CO2 treatment. Now we understand that much of the responses of the microbial community to elevated CO2 were driven by fungi.
[Reposted from Lipson Lab Website]