Nonlinear microbial thermal response and its implications for abrupt soil organic carbon responses to warming

Kailiang Yu (), Lei He, Shuli Niu, Jinsong Wang (), Pablo Garcia-palacios, Marina Dacal, Colin Averill, Katerina Georgiou, Jian-sheng Ye, Fei Mo, Lu Yang and Thomas W. Crowther
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Kailiang Yu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Lei He: Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Shuli Niu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jinsong Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pablo Garcia-palacios: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
Marina Dacal: Universidad de Alicante
Colin Averill: ETH Zürich
Katerina Georgiou: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Jian-sheng Ye: Lanzhou University
Fei Mo: Northwest A&F University
Lu Yang: Beijing Forestry University
Thomas W. Crowther: ETH Zürich

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is a key microbial trait affecting soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics. However, we lack a unified and predictive understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the temperature response of microbial CUE, and, thus, its impacts on SOC storage in a warming world. Here, we leverage three independent soil datasets (n = 618 for microbial CUE; n = 591 and 660 for heterotrophic respiration) at broad spatial scales to investigate the microbial thermal response and its implications for SOC responses to warming. We show a nonlinear increase and decrease of CUE and heterotrophic respiration, respectively, in response to mean annual temperature (MAT), with a thermal threshold at ≈15 °C. These nonlinear relationships are mainly associated with changes in the fungal-to-bacterial biomass ratio. Our microbial-explicit SOC model predicts significant SOC losses at MAT above ≈15 °C due to increased CUE, total microbial biomass, and heterotrophic respiration, implying a potential abrupt transition to more vulnerable SOC under climate warming.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57900-9

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