Multi-year incubation experiments boost confidence in model projections of long-term soil carbon dynamics
Abstract
Abstract Global soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks may decline with a warmer climate. However, model projections of changes in SOC due to climate warming depend on microbially-driven processes that are usually parameterized based on laboratory incubations. To assess how lab-scale incubation datasets inform model projections over decades, we optimized five microbially-relevant parameters in the Microbial-ENzyme Decomposition (MEND) model using 16 short-term glucose (6-day), 16 short-term cellulose (30-day) and 16 long-term cellulose (729-day) incubation datasets with soils from forests and grasslands across contrasting soil types. Our analysis identified consistently higher parameter estimates given the short-term versus long-term datasets. Implementing the short-term and long-term parameters, respectively, resulted in SOC loss (–8.2 ± 5.1% or –3.9 ± 2.8%), and minor SOC gain (1.8 ± 1.0%) in response to 5 °C warming, while only the latter is consistent with a meta-analysis of 149 field warming observations (1.6 ± 4.0%). Comparing multiple subsets of cellulose incubations (i.e., 6, 30, 90, 180, 360, 480 and 729-day) revealed comparable projections to the observed long-term SOC changes under warming only on 480- and 729-day. Integrating multi-year datasets of soil incubations (e.g., > 1.5 years) with microbial models can thus achieve more reasonable parameterization of key microbial processes and subsequently boost the accuracy and confidence of long-term SOCmore »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1716534
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1731058
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725; 1900885; SC0014079; 4000148926
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Volume: 11 Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; biogeochemistry; ecology
Citation Formats
Jian, Siyang, Li, Jianwei, Wang, Gangsheng, Kluber, Laurel A., Schadt, Christopher W., Liang, Junyi, and Mayes, Melanie A. Multi-year incubation experiments boost confidence in model projections of long-term soil carbon dynamics. United Kingdom: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19428-y.
Jian, Siyang, Li, Jianwei, Wang, Gangsheng, Kluber, Laurel A., Schadt, Christopher W., Liang, Junyi, & Mayes, Melanie A. Multi-year incubation experiments boost confidence in model projections of long-term soil carbon dynamics. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19428-y
Jian, Siyang, Li, Jianwei, Wang, Gangsheng, Kluber, Laurel A., Schadt, Christopher W., Liang, Junyi, and Mayes, Melanie A. Tue .
"Multi-year incubation experiments boost confidence in model projections of long-term soil carbon dynamics". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19428-y.
@article{osti_1716534,
title = {Multi-year incubation experiments boost confidence in model projections of long-term soil carbon dynamics},
author = {Jian, Siyang and Li, Jianwei and Wang, Gangsheng and Kluber, Laurel A. and Schadt, Christopher W. and Liang, Junyi and Mayes, Melanie A.},
abstractNote = {Abstract Global soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks may decline with a warmer climate. However, model projections of changes in SOC due to climate warming depend on microbially-driven processes that are usually parameterized based on laboratory incubations. To assess how lab-scale incubation datasets inform model projections over decades, we optimized five microbially-relevant parameters in the Microbial-ENzyme Decomposition (MEND) model using 16 short-term glucose (6-day), 16 short-term cellulose (30-day) and 16 long-term cellulose (729-day) incubation datasets with soils from forests and grasslands across contrasting soil types. Our analysis identified consistently higher parameter estimates given the short-term versus long-term datasets. Implementing the short-term and long-term parameters, respectively, resulted in SOC loss (–8.2 ± 5.1% or –3.9 ± 2.8%), and minor SOC gain (1.8 ± 1.0%) in response to 5 °C warming, while only the latter is consistent with a meta-analysis of 149 field warming observations (1.6 ± 4.0%). Comparing multiple subsets of cellulose incubations (i.e., 6, 30, 90, 180, 360, 480 and 729-day) revealed comparable projections to the observed long-term SOC changes under warming only on 480- and 729-day. Integrating multi-year datasets of soil incubations (e.g., > 1.5 years) with microbial models can thus achieve more reasonable parameterization of key microbial processes and subsequently boost the accuracy and confidence of long-term SOC projections.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-020-19428-y},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = 1,
volume = 11,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Tue Nov 17 00:00:00 EST 2020},
month = {Tue Nov 17 00:00:00 EST 2020}
}
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