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Extracellular enzymes in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments: perspectives on system variability and common research needs

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Abstract

Extracellular enzymes produced by heterotrophic microbial communities are major drivers of carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments. Although carbon and nutrient cycles are coupled on global scales, studies of extracellular enzymes associated with terrestrial, freshwater, and marine microbial communities are not often compared across ecosystems. In part, this disconnect arises because the environmental parameters that control enzyme activities in terrestrial and freshwater systems, such as temperature, pH, and moisture content, have little explanatory power for patterns of enzyme activities in marine systems. Instead, factors such as the functional diversity of microbial communities may explain varying patterns of enzyme activities observed in the ocean to date. In any case, many studies across systems focus on similar issues that highlight the commonalities of microbial community organization. Examples include the effective lifetime of enzymes released into the environment; the extent to which microbial communities coordinate enzyme expression to decompose complex organic substrates; and the influence of microbial community composition on enzyme activities and kinetics. Here we review the often-disparate research foci in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments. We consider the extent to which environmental factors may regulate extracellular enzyme activities within each ecosystem, and highlight commonalities and current methodological challenges to identify research questions that may aid in integrating cross-system perspectives in the future.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Enzymes in the Environment Research Coordination Network for organizing the 2nd International RCN Workshop: Incorporating Enzymes into Biogeochemistry: Paradigms, Models & Classes workshop. Discussions at the workshop, which was funded by the US National Science Foundation under award number 0840869, spurred us to write this review. This work was also supported by National Science Foundation grants OCE-0848703 to Arnosti; Ecosystems Program 0918718 to Weintraub, Moorehead, and Sinsabaugh; and 1020540 to Bell and Wallenstein. This manuscript is also a C-DEBI contribution (number 175; grant 36202823 to Steen; 161533 to Arnosti; C-DEBI is funded by NSF award OCE-0939564). We thank Leigh McCallister, as well as four anonymous reviewers, for their thoughtful comments that considerably improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 3117A Venable Hall CB #3300, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3300, USA

    C. Arnosti

  2. Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    C. Bell & M. Wallenstein

  3. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

    D. L. Moorhead & M. N. Weintraub

  4. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    R. L. Sinsabaugh

  5. Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    A. D. Steen

  6. Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    M. Stromberger

  7. Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    M. Stromberger

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  1. C. Arnosti
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  2. C. Bell
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  8. M. N. Weintraub
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Correspondence to C. Arnosti.

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Arnosti, C., Bell, C., Moorhead, D.L. et al. Extracellular enzymes in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments: perspectives on system variability and common research needs. Biogeochemistry 117, 5–21 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-013-9906-5

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