TY - JOUR
T1 - Microbial carbon use efficiency promotes global soil carbon storage
AU - Tao, Feng
AU - Huang, Yuanyuan
AU - Hungate, Bruce A.
AU - Manzoni, Stefano
AU - Frey, Serita D.
AU - Schmidt, Michael W.I.
AU - Reichstein, Markus
AU - Carvalhais, Nuno
AU - Ciais, Philippe
AU - Jiang, Lifen
AU - Lehmann, Johannes
AU - Wang, Ying Ping
AU - Houlton, Benjamin Z.
AU - Ahrens, Bernhard
AU - Mishra, Umakant
AU - Hugelius, Gustaf
AU - Hocking, Toby D.
AU - Lu, Xingjie
AU - Shi, Zheng
AU - Viatkin, Kostiantyn
AU - Vargas, Ronald
AU - Yigini, Yusuf
AU - Omuto, Christian
AU - Malik, Ashish A.
AU - Peralta, Guillermo
AU - Cuevas-Corona, Rosa
AU - Di Paolo, Luciano E.
AU - Luotto, Isabel
AU - Liao, Cuijuan
AU - Liang, Yi Shuang
AU - Saynes, Vinisa S.
AU - Huang, Xiaomeng
AU - Luo, Yiqi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/6/29
Y1 - 2023/6/29
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41586-023-06042-3
DO - 10.1038/s41586-023-06042-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 37225998
AN - SCOPUS:85160219886
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 618
SP - 981
EP - 985
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7967
ER -