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A trade-off between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO2

Journal Article · · Nature (London)
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [14];  [15];  [13];  [16];  [17];  [17];  [18]
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
  2. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)
  3. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  4. Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain)
  5. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  6. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  7. University of Exeter (United Kingdom)
  8. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  9. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  10. Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule, Zurich (Switzerland); Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf (Switzerland)
  11. Univ. of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN (United States); Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW (Australia)
  12. Stanford Univ., CA (United States); Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  13. Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW (Australia)
  14. Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom)
  15. Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
  16. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  17. University of Antwerp, Wilrijk (Belgium)
  18. Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Terrestrial ecosystems remove about 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by human activities each year, yet the persistence of this carbon sink depends partly on how plant biomass and soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks respond to future increases in atmospheric CO2. Although plant biomass often increases in elevated CO2 (eCO2) experiments, SOC has been observed to increase, remain unchanged or even decline. The mechanisms that drive this variation across experiments remain poorly understood, creating uncertainty in climate projections. In this study we synthesized data from 108 eCO2 experiments and found that the effect of eCO2 on SOC stocks is best explained by a negative relationship with plant biomass: when plant biomass is strongly stimulated by eCO2, SOC storage declines; conversely, when biomass is weakly stimulated, SOC storage increases. This trade-off appears to be related to plant nutrient acquisition, in which plants increase their biomass by mining the soil for nutrients, which decreases SOC storage. We found that, overall, SOC stocks increase with eCO2 in grasslands (8 ± 2 per cent) but not in forests (0 ± 2 per cent), even though plant biomass in grasslands increase less (9 ± 3 per cent) than in forests (23 ± 2 per cent). Ecosystem models do not reproduce this trade-off, which implies that projections of SOC may need to be revised.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC52-07NA27344; FG02-96ER62291; SC0008317; SC0010632; SC0016188
OSTI ID:
1777798
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1787208
OSTI ID: 1787214
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL--808898; LLNL-JRNL--820783
Journal Information:
Nature (London), Journal Name: Nature (London) Journal Issue: 7851 Vol. 591; ISSN 0028-0836
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
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