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Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming

Subsoils contain more than half of soil organic carbon (SOC) and are expected to experience rapid warming in the coming decades. Yet our understanding of the stability of this vast carbon pool under global warming is uncertain. In particular, the fate of complex molecular structures (polymers) remai...

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Autores principales: Zosso, Cyrill U., Ofiti, Nicholas O. E., Torn, Margaret S., Wiesenberg, Guido L. B., Schmidt, Michael W. I.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10089920/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37064011
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01142-1
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author Zosso, Cyrill U.
Ofiti, Nicholas O. E.
Torn, Margaret S.
Wiesenberg, Guido L. B.
Schmidt, Michael W. I.
author_facet Zosso, Cyrill U.
Ofiti, Nicholas O. E.
Torn, Margaret S.
Wiesenberg, Guido L. B.
Schmidt, Michael W. I.
author_sort Zosso, Cyrill U.
collection PubMed
description Subsoils contain more than half of soil organic carbon (SOC) and are expected to experience rapid warming in the coming decades. Yet our understanding of the stability of this vast carbon pool under global warming is uncertain. In particular, the fate of complex molecular structures (polymers) remains debated. Here we show that 4.5 years of whole-soil warming (+4 °C) resulted in less polymeric SOC (sum of specific polymers contributing to SOC) in the warmed subsoil (20–90 cm) relative to control, with no detectable change in topsoil. Warming stimulated the subsoil loss of lignin phenols (−17 ± 0%) derived from woody plant biomass, hydrolysable lipids cutin and suberin, derived from leaf and woody plant biomass (−28 ± 3%), and pyrogenic carbon (−37 ± 8%) produced during incomplete combustion. Given that these compounds have been proposed for long-term carbon sequestration, it is notable that they were rapidly lost in warmed soils. We conclude that complex polymeric carbon in subsoil is vulnerable to decomposition and propose that molecular structure alone may not protect compounds from degradation under future warming.
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spelling pubmed-100899202023-04-13 Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming Zosso, Cyrill U. Ofiti, Nicholas O. E. Torn, Margaret S. Wiesenberg, Guido L. B. Schmidt, Michael W. I. Nat Geosci Article Subsoils contain more than half of soil organic carbon (SOC) and are expected to experience rapid warming in the coming decades. Yet our understanding of the stability of this vast carbon pool under global warming is uncertain. In particular, the fate of complex molecular structures (polymers) remains debated. Here we show that 4.5 years of whole-soil warming (+4 °C) resulted in less polymeric SOC (sum of specific polymers contributing to SOC) in the warmed subsoil (20–90 cm) relative to control, with no detectable change in topsoil. Warming stimulated the subsoil loss of lignin phenols (−17 ± 0%) derived from woody plant biomass, hydrolysable lipids cutin and suberin, derived from leaf and woody plant biomass (−28 ± 3%), and pyrogenic carbon (−37 ± 8%) produced during incomplete combustion. Given that these compounds have been proposed for long-term carbon sequestration, it is notable that they were rapidly lost in warmed soils. We conclude that complex polymeric carbon in subsoil is vulnerable to decomposition and propose that molecular structure alone may not protect compounds from degradation under future warming. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-03-30 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10089920/ /pubmed/37064011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01142-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Zosso, Cyrill U.
Ofiti, Nicholas O. E.
Torn, Margaret S.
Wiesenberg, Guido L. B.
Schmidt, Michael W. I.
Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming
title Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming
title_full Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming
title_fullStr Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming
title_full_unstemmed Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming
title_short Rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming
title_sort rapid loss of complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoils under whole-soil warming
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10089920/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37064011
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01142-1
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