Host Species-Microbiome Interactions Contribute to Sphagnum Moss Growth Acclimation to Warming.

Sphagnum moss is the dominant plant genus in northern peatlands responsible for long-term carbon accumulation. Sphagnum hosts diverse microbial communities (microbiomes), and its phytobiome (plant host + constituent microbiome + environment) plays a key role in nutrient acquisition along with carbon cycling. Climate change can modify the Sphagnum-associated microbiome, resulting in enhanced host growth and thermal acclimation as previously shown in warming experiments. However, the extent of microbiome benefits to the host and the influence of host-microbe specificity on Sphagnum thermal acclimation remain unclear. Here, we extracted Sphagnum microbiomes from five donor species of four peatland warming experiments across a latitudinal gradient and applied those microbiomes to three germ-free Sphagnum species grown across a range of temperatures in the laboratory. Using this experimental system, we test if Sphagnum's growth response to warming depends on the donor and/or recipient host species, and we determine how the microbiome's growth conditions in the field affect Sphagnum host growth across a range of temperatures in the laboratory. After 4 weeks, we found that the highest growth rate of recipient Sphagnum was observed in treatments of matched host-microbiome pairs, with rates approximately 50% and 250% higher in comparison to maximum growth rates of non-matched host-microbiome pairs and germ-free Sphagnum, respectively. We also found that the maximum growth rate of host-microbiome pairs was reached when treatment temperatures were close to the microbiome's native temperatures. Our study shows that Sphagnum's growth acclimation to temperature is partially controlled by its constituent microbiome. Strong Sphagnum host-microbiome species specificity indicates the existence of underlying, unknown physiological mechanisms that may drive Sphagnum's ability to acclimatize to elevated temperatures. Together with rapid acclimation of the microbiome to warming, these specific microbiome-plant associations have the potential to enhance peatland resilience in the face of climate change.

© 2025 Oak Ridge National Laboratory and The Author(s). Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.