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Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property

Nature volume 478, pages 49–56 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Globally, soil organic matter (SOM) contains more than three times as much carbon as either the atmosphere or terrestrial vegetation. Yet it remains largely unknown why some SOM persists for millennia whereas other SOM decomposes readily—and this limits our ability to predict how soils will respond to climate change. Recent analytical and experimental advances have demonstrated that molecular structure alone does not control SOM stability: in fact, environmental and biological controls predominate. Here we propose ways to include this understanding in a new generation of experiments and soil carbon models, thereby improving predictions of the SOM response to global warming.

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Figure 1: Molecular structure does not control long-term decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM).
Figure 2: In soil, the existence of humic substances has not been verified by direct measurements.
Figure 3: A synopsis of all eight insights, contrasting historical and emerging views of soil carbon cycling.

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Acknowledgements

The European Science Foundation Network MOLTER sponsored the workshop at which the idea for this Perspective was conceived. Support for M.W.I.S. and M.S.T. was also provided by the US Department of Energy (contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231).

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Author notes

  1. Michael W. I. Schmidt and Margaret S. Torn: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Zurich, 8050 Zürich, Switzerland

    Michael W. I. Schmidt & Samuel Abiven

  2. Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Margaret S. Torn

  3. Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Margaret S. Torn

  4. Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry, University of Oldenburg, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

    Thorsten Dittmar

  5. Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, 28359 Bremen, Germany

    Thorsten Dittmar

  6. Institute of Soil Science, Leibniz Universität Hannover, 30419 Hannover, Germany

    Georg Guggenberger

  7. Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, 2610 Wilrijk, Belgium

    Ivan A. Janssens

  8. Department of Crop and Soil Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, 97331, Oregon, USA

    Markus Kleber

  9. Lehrstuhl für Bodenkunde, Technische Universität München, 85354 Freising, Germany

    Ingrid Kögel-Knabner

  10. Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14853, New York, USA

    Johannes Lehmann

  11. School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK

    David A. C. Manning

  12. Department of Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Firenze, 50144 Firenze, Italy

    Paolo Nannipieri

  13. Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, 1432 Ås, Norway

    Daniel P. Rasse

  14. Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute, 76100 Rehovot, Israel

    Steve Weiner

  15. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745 Jena, Germany

    Susan E. Trumbore

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  1. Michael W. I. Schmidt
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Contributions

M.W.I.S. coordinated the MOLTER-sponsored workshop mentioned above; the ideas were developed by all authors. M.W.I.S. and M.S.T. participated actively and equally in the writing of the manuscript and the drafting of the figures. All authors provided input into the drafting and the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Michael W. I. Schmidt or Margaret S. Torn.

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Schmidt, M., Torn, M., Abiven, S. et al. Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property. Nature 478, 49–56 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10386

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