RESACC, coordinated by Silvano Onofri (University of Tuscia, Viterbo), is a multidisciplinary projec, founded by the Italian National Research Program, aiming to the analysis and quantification of the Climate Change impacts in highly sensible environments at high elevation in the Italian Alps. The soil microbial diversity and community assembly are being studied, as well as the effects of environmental factors, as edaphic parameters, elevation gradients and type of plant cover (nival vegetation, alpine and subalpine grassland, and shrubland). The effects of climate change on soil microbial activities is also being studied by means of Open-Top Chambers (OTCs).
To highlight a correlation between the abundance of microbial communities and climatic perturbations, and to explain the effect on ecosystem processes, the soil activity of extracellular enzymes involved in OM transformation and the structure and function of the soil communities will be studied using RNA-centered meta-transcriptomic approach.
