Microbial carbon use efficiency promotes global soil carbon storage

Journal Article · Wed May 24 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Nature (London)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06042-3· OSTI ID:2212450

Tao, Feng ^[1]; Huang, Yuanyuan ^[2]; Hungate, Bruce A. ^[3]; Manzoni, Stefano ^[4]; Frey, Serita D. ^[5]; Schmidt, Michael W. I. ^[6]; Reichstein, Markus ^[7]; Carvalhais, Nuno ^[8]; Ciais, Philippe ^[9]; Jiang, Lifen ^[10]; Lehmann, Johannes ^[10]; Wang, Ying-Ping ^[11]; Houlton, Benjamin Z. ^[10]; Ahrens, Bernhard ^[7]; Mishra, Umakant ^[12]; Hugelius, Gustaf ^[4]; Hocking, Toby D. ^[3]; Lu, Xingjie ^[13]; Shi, Zheng ^[14]; Viatkin, Kostiantyn ^[15] ; Vargas, Ronald ^[16]; Yigini, Yusuf ^[16]; Omuto, Christian ^[16]; Malik, Ashish A. ^[17]; Peralta, Guillermo ^[16]; Cuevas-Corona, Rosa ^[16]; Di Paolo, Luciano E. ^[16]; Luotto, Isabel ^[16]; Liao, Cuijuan ^[18]; Liang, Yi-Shuang ^[18]; Saynes, Vinisa S. ^[16]; Huang, Xiaomeng ^[18]; Luo, Yiqi ^[10]

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1. Tsinghua University, Beijing (China); Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany); Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome (Italy)
2. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
3. Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
4. Stockholm University (Sweden)
5. University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
6. University of Zurich (Switzerland)
7. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany)
8. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany); Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica (Portugal)
9. CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France). Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE/IPSL)
10. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (United States)
11. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Environment, Aspendale, VIC (Australia)
12. Sandia National Laboratory (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
13. Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou (China)
14. University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States)
15. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome (Italy); Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (United States)
16. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome (Italy)
17. University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom)
18. Tsinghua University, Beijing (China)

Soils store more carbon than other terrestrial ecosystems. How soil organic carbon (SOC) forms and persists remains uncertain, which makes it challenging to understand how it will respond to climatic change. It has been suggested that soil microorganisms play an important role in SOC formation, preservation and loss. Although microorganisms affect the accumulation and loss of soil organic matter through many pathways, microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is an integrative metric that can capture the balance of these processes. Although CUE has the potential to act as a predictor of variation in SOC storage, the role of CUE in SOC persistence remains unresolved. 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.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); National Science Foundation (NSF); China Scholarship Council (CSC); Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; NA0003525; SC0023514
• OSTI ID: 2212450
• Journal Information: Nature (London), Journal Name: Nature (London) Journal Issue: 7967 Vol. 618; ISSN 0028-0836
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
Carbon cycle