Whole-soil-profile warming does not change microbial carbon use efficiency in surface and deep soils.

ABSTRACT: The paucity of investigations of carbon (C) dynamics through the soil profile with warming makes it challenging to evaluate the terrestrial C feedback to climate change. Soil microbes are important engines driving terrestrial biogeochemical cycles; their carbon use efficiency (CUE), defined as the proportion of metabolized organic C allocated to microbial biomass, is a key regulator controlling the fate of soil C. It has been theorized that microbial CUE should decline with warming; however, empirical evidence for this response is scarce, and data from deeper soils are particularly scarce. Here, based on soil samples from a whole-soil-profile warming experiment (0 to 1 m, +4 °C) and ¹⁸O tracing approach, we examined the vertical variation of microbial CUE and its response to ~3.

SUBMITTER: Zhang Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10410710 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature