Microbial carbon use efficiency promotes global soil carbon storage

Feng Tao, Yuanyuan Huang, Bruce A. Hungate, Stefano Manzoni, Serita D. Frey, Michael W. I. Schmidt, Markus Reichstein, Nuno Carvalhais, Philippe Ciais, Lifen Jiang, Johannes Lehmann, Ying-Ping Wang, Benjamin Z. Houlton, Bernhard Ahrens, Umakant Mishra, Gustaf Hugelius, Toby D. Hocking, Xingjie Lu, Zheng Shi, Kostiantyn Viatkin, Ronald Vargas, Yusuf Yigini, Christian Omuto, Ashish A. Malik, Guillermo Peralta, Rosa Cuevas-Corona, Luciano E. Paolo, Isabel Luotto, Cuijuan Liao, Yi-Shuang Liang, Vinisa S. Saynes, Xiaomeng Huang () and Yiqi Luo ()
Additional contact information
Feng Tao: Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University
Yuanyuan Huang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Bruce A. Hungate: Northern Arizona University
Stefano Manzoni: Stockholm University
Serita D. Frey: University of New Hampshire
Michael W. I. Schmidt: University of Zurich
Markus Reichstein: Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Nuno Carvalhais: Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Philippe Ciais: Université Paris-Saclay
Lifen Jiang: Cornell University
Johannes Lehmann: Cornell University
Ying-Ping Wang: CSIRO Environment
Benjamin Z. Houlton: Cornell University
Bernhard Ahrens: Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Umakant Mishra: Sandia National Laboratories
Gustaf Hugelius: Stockholm University
Toby D. Hocking: Northern Arizona University
Xingjie Lu: Sun Yat-sen University
Zheng Shi: University of Oklahoma
Kostiantyn Viatkin: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Ronald Vargas: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Yusuf Yigini: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Christian Omuto: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Ashish A. Malik: University of Aberdeen
Guillermo Peralta: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Rosa Cuevas-Corona: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Luciano E. Paolo: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Isabel Luotto: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Cuijuan Liao: Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University
Yi-Shuang Liang: Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University
Vinisa S. Saynes: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
Xiaomeng Huang: Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University
Yiqi Luo: Cornell University

Nature, 2023, vol. 618, issue 7967, 981-985

Abstract: Abstract Soils store more carbon than other terrestrial ecosystems1,2. How soil organic carbon (SOC) forms and persists remains uncertain1,3, which makes it challenging to understand how it will respond to climatic change3,4. It has been suggested that soil microorganisms play an important role in SOC formation, preservation and loss5–7. Although microorganisms affect the accumulation and loss of soil organic matter through many pathways4,6,8–11, microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is an integrative metric that can capture the balance of these processes12,13. Although CUE has the potential to act as a predictor of variation in SOC storage, the role of CUE in SOC persistence remains unresolved7,14,15. Here we examine the relationship between CUE and the preservation of SOC, and interactions with climate, vegetation and edaphic properties, using a combination of global-scale datasets, a microbial-process explicit model, data assimilation, deep learning and meta-analysis. We find that CUE is at least four times as important as other evaluated factors, such as carbon input, decomposition or vertical transport, in determining SOC storage and its spatial variation across the globe. In addition, CUE shows a positive correlation with SOC content. Our findings point to microbial CUE as a major determinant of global SOC storage. Understanding the microbial processes underlying CUE and their environmental dependence may help the prediction of SOC feedback to a changing climate.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06042-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:618:y:2023:i:7967:d:10.1038_s41586-023-06042-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06042-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().