The dissolved organic matter (DOM) pool integrates metabolic responses to environmental cues across organisms, and even among ecosystems. Thus, the DOM pool could be a potentially rich source of information on how ecosystems respond to environmental drivers such as temperature, moisture and elemental resources if the components of the DOM molecular mixture can be resolved. I will illustrate the application of mass spectrometry-based meta-metabolomics as a systems-level tool for grappling with the small molecule features of the DOM pool in soil ecosystems, as well as the application of community ecology-based metrics for describing the diversity and responses of the DOM pool to environmental drivers. Data from experimental manipulations including reactive nitrogen amendments, elevated carbon dioxide and warming will highlight results relevant in a global change context. These data will be presented along with the natural variability in DOM pool composition driven by seasonal shifts in an Arctic ecosystem. The meta-metabolomics approach is a gateway to examining enriched metabolic pathways based on identified driver molecules thus enhancing our knowledge of DOM processing in response to environmental cues.

Meta-metabolomics as a systems-level tool for examining shifts in organic matter composition driven by environmental change

249th National Meeting (2015)

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