Differences in microbial community composition in different horizons in arctic soils.

<p>Principal component analysis (PCA) with relative abundances of all PFLA biomarkers. Colors indicate different horizon categories: organic topsoil (O) is dark grey, mineral topsoil (A) is light grey, mineral subsoil (B) is white, and cryoturbated material (J) is black. Symbols indicate sites: circles Cherskiy, diamonds Logata, and triangles Tazovsky. Symbols are the mean values of the coordinates for the individual categories, derived from the PCA with individual samples (n = 101). Error bars are SE. Colors of PLFA markers indicate general markers (grey), gram-positive markers (red), gram-negative markers (orange), bacterial markers (blue) and fungal markers (green).</p

Properties of the microbial community.

<p>Total amount of PLFAs, fungi∶bacteria ratios and statistical results for the first three principal components derived from a PCA with relative abundances of all PLFA biomarkers. Values are mean values (± standard error) over all sites and for each horizon per site. Letters in parentheses indicate significantly different (P<0.05) groups between horizons derived from ANOVA and Tukey-HSD tests.</p

Climate and Vegetation.

<p>Climate data are derived from WorldClim database including mean annual temperature (MAT), maximum temperature of the warmest month (Tmax), minimum temperature of the coldest month (Tmin) mean annual range in temperature (MART) and mean annual precipitation (MAP).</p

Extracellular enzyme activities and enzyme ratios in different horizons in arctic soils.

<p>Left panel: Extracellular enzyme activities for the C-acquiring enzyme cellobiohydrolase (CBH), the N-acquiring enzyme leucine-amino-peptidase (LAP) and the oxidative enzyme phenoloxidase (POX). Right panel: Ratios of the three enzyme activities to each other. Given are the means and standard errors for the individual horizon categories: organic topsoil (O), mineral topsoil (A), mineral subsoil (B), and cryoturbated material (J). Colors indicate different horizon categories: organic topsoil is dark grey, mineral topsoil is light grey, mineral subsoil is white, and cryoturbated material is black. Small letters indicate different statistical groups derived from ANOVA and Tukey-HSD tests.</p

Direct and indirect drivers of extracellular enzyme activities.

<p>Structural equation models for extracellular enzyme activities, cellobiohydrolase (CBH; a, d), leucine-amino-peptidase (LAP; b, e) and phenoloxidase (POX; c,f). Graphs on the left show regular soil (organic topsoil, mineral topsoil, mineral subsoil), right panel shows cryoturbated material. Black boxes and arrows indicate significant factors and paths. Boxes and arrows in grey were removed from the model because either the paths (arrows) were not significant, or the factors (boxes) had no direct or indirect effect on the enzyme activity. The boxes with C, N and Clay are the contents of organic carbon, nitrogen, and clay. Microbial biomass (MicBM) was calculated as total amount of PLFAs. PC1, PC2 and PC3 are the first three axes of PCAs with relative abundances of all PLFAs. PCAs for regular soil and cryoturbated material have been done individually. Arrow width indicates the strength of the effect and reflects the scaled estimates, which are also given as the numbers beside the respective arrows. The numbers below the boxes with the respective enzymes show R² and indicate how much of the variance in enzyme activity is explained by the model.</p

Map showing the three sampling sites in the Siberian Arctic.

<p>Tazovsky (TZ; 67°16′N, 78°50′E), Logata (LG; 73°25′N, 98°16′E) and Cherskiy (CH; 68°45′N, 161°20′E). The horizontal line is the polar circle.</p