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Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits
Conceptual and empirical advances in soil biogeochemistry have challenged long-held assumptions about the role of soil micro-organisms in soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics; yet, rigorous tests of emerging concepts remain sparse. Recent hypotheses suggest that microbial necromass production links pl...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8907208/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35264580 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28715-9 |
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author | Craig, Matthew E. Geyer, Kevin M. Beidler, Katilyn V. Brzostek, Edward R. Frey, Serita D. Stuart Grandy, A. Liang, Chao Phillips, Richard P. |
author_facet | Craig, Matthew E. Geyer, Kevin M. Beidler, Katilyn V. Brzostek, Edward R. Frey, Serita D. Stuart Grandy, A. Liang, Chao Phillips, Richard P. |
author_sort | Craig, Matthew E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Conceptual and empirical advances in soil biogeochemistry have challenged long-held assumptions about the role of soil micro-organisms in soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics; yet, rigorous tests of emerging concepts remain sparse. Recent hypotheses suggest that microbial necromass production links plant inputs to SOC accumulation, with high-quality (i.e., rapidly decomposing) plant litter promoting microbial carbon use efficiency, growth, and turnover leading to more mineral stabilization of necromass. We test this hypothesis experimentally and with observations across six eastern US forests, using stable isotopes to measure microbial traits and SOC dynamics. Here we show, in both studies, that microbial growth, efficiency, and turnover are negatively (not positively) related to mineral-associated SOC. In the experiment, stimulation of microbial growth by high-quality litter enhances SOC decomposition, offsetting the positive effect of litter quality on SOC stabilization. We suggest that microbial necromass production is not the primary driver of SOC persistence in temperate forests. Factors such as microbial necromass origin, alternative SOC formation pathways, priming effects, and soil abiotic properties can strongly decouple microbial growth, efficiency, and turnover from mineral-associated SOC. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8907208 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89072082022-03-23 Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits Craig, Matthew E. Geyer, Kevin M. Beidler, Katilyn V. Brzostek, Edward R. Frey, Serita D. Stuart Grandy, A. Liang, Chao Phillips, Richard P. Nat Commun Article Conceptual and empirical advances in soil biogeochemistry have challenged long-held assumptions about the role of soil micro-organisms in soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics; yet, rigorous tests of emerging concepts remain sparse. Recent hypotheses suggest that microbial necromass production links plant inputs to SOC accumulation, with high-quality (i.e., rapidly decomposing) plant litter promoting microbial carbon use efficiency, growth, and turnover leading to more mineral stabilization of necromass. We test this hypothesis experimentally and with observations across six eastern US forests, using stable isotopes to measure microbial traits and SOC dynamics. Here we show, in both studies, that microbial growth, efficiency, and turnover are negatively (not positively) related to mineral-associated SOC. In the experiment, stimulation of microbial growth by high-quality litter enhances SOC decomposition, offsetting the positive effect of litter quality on SOC stabilization. We suggest that microbial necromass production is not the primary driver of SOC persistence in temperate forests. Factors such as microbial necromass origin, alternative SOC formation pathways, priming effects, and soil abiotic properties can strongly decouple microbial growth, efficiency, and turnover from mineral-associated SOC. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-03-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8907208/ /pubmed/35264580 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28715-9 Text en © This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2022 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 Craig, Matthew E. Geyer, Kevin M. Beidler, Katilyn V. Brzostek, Edward R. Frey, Serita D. Stuart Grandy, A. Liang, Chao Phillips, Richard P. Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits |
title | Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits |
title_full | Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits |
title_fullStr | Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits |
title_full_unstemmed | Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits |
title_short | Fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits |
title_sort | fast-decaying plant litter enhances soil carbon in temperate forests but not through microbial physiological traits |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8907208/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35264580 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28715-9 |
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