Global warming in the Arctic is resulting in an overall greening of the environment, with a remarked encroachment of shrub vegetation that is competitively replacing other terrestrial habitats. This may lead to a loss of diversity associated to the environments over competed. However, the main concern is linked to the possible enhanced soil microbial activity due to these phenomena that could lead to the mobilization of pools of organic matter present in arctic soil, that could be released to the atmosphere as greenhouse gasses, thus amplifying warming effects.
The aim of our studies was to characterize soil microbial (both fungi and bacteria) communities in different soil habitats corresponding to an increasing vegetation coverage in West Greenland, to understand how the biodiversity and composition of these communities, would respond to the shrub encroachment. The research activity has been funded by INTERACT under the European Union H2020 Grant Agreement No. 730938 and by the Italian National Research Program (PRIN) project 2015N8F555 (Project title: "Responses of Alpine Sensible Ecosystems to Climate Changes" ReSaCC).
