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Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass
Earthworms co-determine whether soil, as the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir, acts as source or sink for photosynthetically fixed CO(2). However, conclusive evidence for their role in stabilising or destabilising soil carbon has not been fully established. Here, we demonstrate that earthworms f...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6883063/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31815196 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0684-z |
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author | Angst, Gerrit Mueller, Carsten W. Prater, Isabel Angst, Šárka Frouz, Jan Jílková, Veronika Peterse, Francien Nierop, Klaas G. J. |
author_facet | Angst, Gerrit Mueller, Carsten W. Prater, Isabel Angst, Šárka Frouz, Jan Jílková, Veronika Peterse, Francien Nierop, Klaas G. J. |
author_sort | Angst, Gerrit |
collection | PubMed |
description | Earthworms co-determine whether soil, as the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir, acts as source or sink for photosynthetically fixed CO(2). However, conclusive evidence for their role in stabilising or destabilising soil carbon has not been fully established. Here, we demonstrate that earthworms function like biochemical reactors by converting labile plant compounds into microbial necromass in stabilised carbon pools without altering bulk measures, such as the total carbon content. We show that much of this microbial carbon is not associated with mineral surfaces and emphasise the functional importance of particulate organic matter for long-term carbon sequestration. Our findings suggest that while earthworms do not necessarily affect soil organic carbon stocks, they do increase the resilience of soil carbon to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Our results have implications for climate change mitigation and challenge the assumption that mineral-associated organic matter is the only relevant pool for soil carbon sequestration. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6883063 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-68830632019-12-06 Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass Angst, Gerrit Mueller, Carsten W. Prater, Isabel Angst, Šárka Frouz, Jan Jílková, Veronika Peterse, Francien Nierop, Klaas G. J. Commun Biol Article Earthworms co-determine whether soil, as the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir, acts as source or sink for photosynthetically fixed CO(2). However, conclusive evidence for their role in stabilising or destabilising soil carbon has not been fully established. Here, we demonstrate that earthworms function like biochemical reactors by converting labile plant compounds into microbial necromass in stabilised carbon pools without altering bulk measures, such as the total carbon content. We show that much of this microbial carbon is not associated with mineral surfaces and emphasise the functional importance of particulate organic matter for long-term carbon sequestration. Our findings suggest that while earthworms do not necessarily affect soil organic carbon stocks, they do increase the resilience of soil carbon to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Our results have implications for climate change mitigation and challenge the assumption that mineral-associated organic matter is the only relevant pool for soil carbon sequestration. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-11-28 /pmc/articles/PMC6883063/ /pubmed/31815196 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0684-z Text en © The Author(s) 2019 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/. |
spellingShingle | Article Angst, Gerrit Mueller, Carsten W. Prater, Isabel Angst, Šárka Frouz, Jan Jílková, Veronika Peterse, Francien Nierop, Klaas G. J. Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass |
title | Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass |
title_full | Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass |
title_fullStr | Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass |
title_full_unstemmed | Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass |
title_short | Earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass |
title_sort | earthworms act as biochemical reactors to convert labile plant compounds into stabilized soil microbial necromass |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6883063/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31815196 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0684-z |
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