The functional trait framework provides a powerful corpus of integrated concepts and theories to assess how environmental factors influence ecosystem functioning through community assembly. While common in plant ecology, this approach is under-used in microbial ecology. After an introduction of this framework in the context of microbial ecology and enzymology, we propose an approach 1) to elucidate new links between soil microbial community composition and microbial traits; and 2) to disentangle mechanisms underlying “total” potential enzyme activity in soil (sum of 7 hydrolase potential activities). We address these objectives using a terrestrial grassland ecosystem model experiment with intact soil monoliths from three European countries (Switzerland, France and Portugal) and two management types (Conventional-intensive and Ecological-intensive), subjected to 4 rain regimes (Dry, Wet, Intermittent and Normal) under controlled conditions in a common climate chamber. We found tight associations between proxies of microbial ecoenzymatic community-weighted mean traits (enzymatic stoichiometry and biomass-specific activity) and community composition, bringing new information on resource acquisition strategy associated with fungi, Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria. We demonstrate that microbial biomass explained most of the total enzyme activity before altered rain regimes, whereas adjustments in biomass-specific activity (enzyme activity per unit of microbial biomass) explained most variation under altered rain regime scenarios. Furthermore, structural equation models revealed that the variation of community composition was the main driver of the variation in biomass-specific enzyme activity prior to rain perturbation, whereas physiological acclimation or evolutionary adaptation became an important driver only under altered rain regimes. This study presents a promising trait-based approach to investigate soil microbial community response to environmental changes and potential consequences for ecosystem functioning. We argue that the functional trait framework should be further implemented in microbial ecology to guide experimental and analytical design.

功能特征框架提供了强大的集成概念和理论的语料库，用于评估环境因素如何通过社区大会影响生态系统的功能。尽管这种方法在植物生态学中很常见，但在微生物生态学中却没有得到充分利用。在微生物生态学和酶学背景下介绍了该框架后，我们提出了一种方法1）阐明土壤微生物群落组成与微生物性状之间的新联系；2）弄清土壤中“总”潜在酶活性（7种水解酶潜在活性之和）的潜在机制。为了解决这些目标，我们使用了陆地草地生态系统模型实验，对来自三个欧洲国家（瑞士，法国和葡萄牙）和两种管理类型（常规集约型和生态集约型）的完整土壤块进行了研究，在一个共同的气候室内，在受控条件下经受了4种降雨方式（干，湿，间断和正常）。我们发现微生物生态酶群落加权平均特质（酶化学计量和生物量比活性）与群落组成之间的紧密联系，为真菌，革兰氏阳性和革兰氏阴性细菌相关的资源获取策略提供了新信息。我们证明了微生物生物量解释了改变雨情之前的大部分总酶活性，而生物量比活性的调整（每单位微生物生物量的酶活性）解释了雨情变化情况下的大多数变化。此外，结构方程模型表明，群落组成的变化是降雨扰动之前生物量特异性酶活性变化的主要驱动力，而生理适应或进化适应仅在降雨条件改变时才成为重要的驱动力。这项研究提出了一种有前途的基于特征的方法，以调查土壤微生物群落对环境变化的响应以及对生态系统功能的潜在影响。我们认为功能特性框架应在微生物生态学中进一步实施，以指导实验和分析设计。这项研究提出了一种有前途的基于特征的方法，以调查土壤微生物群落对环境变化的响应以及对生态系统功能的潜在后果。我们认为功能特性框架应在微生物生态学中进一步实施，以指导实验和分析设计。这项研究提出了一种有前途的基于特征的方法，以调查土壤微生物群落对环境变化的响应以及对生态系统功能的潜在影响。我们认为功能特性框架应在微生物生态学中进一步实施，以指导实验和分析设计。