Subtropical Freshwater Wetlands in Response to Experimental

Rising climate temperatures in the future are predicted to accelerate the microbial decomposition of soil organic matter. A field microcosm experiment was carried out to examine the impact of soil warming in freshwater wetlands on different organic car-bon (C) pools and associated microbial functional responses. GeoChip 4.0, a functional gene microarray, was used to determine microbial gene diversity and functional potential for C degradation. Experimental warming significantly increased soil pore wa-ter dissolved organic C and phosphorus (P) concentrations, leading to a higher potential for C emission and P export. Such losses of total organic C stored in soil could be traced back to the decomposition of recalcitrant organic C.Warming preferen-tially stimulated genes for degrading recalcitrant C over labile C. This was especially true for genes encoding cellobiase andmn