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Widespread coupling between the rate and temperature sensitivity of organic matter decay

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 854–857 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Microbial breakdown of soil organic matter influences the potential for terrestrial ecosystems to sequester carbon, and the amount of carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere1,2,3,4. Predicting the sensitivity of microbial decomposition to temperature change is therefore critical to predicting future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and feedbacks to anthropogenic warming5. According to enzyme kinetics, the more biogeochemically recalcitrant the organic matter, the greater the temperature sensitivity of microbial respiration6,7,8. Here, we measured the temperature sensitivity of microbial respiration in soils from 28 sites in North America, ranging from Alaska to Puerto Rico, to test the generality of this principle. We show that the lower the rate of respiration at a reference temperature of 20 °C—and thus the more biogeochemically recalcitrant the organic matter—the greater the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. We compiled our findings with those from other studies, encapsulating a range of environments, and show that this relationship holds across multiple scales and soil types. Although physico-chemical protection of soil organic matter and substrate availability will also influence the temperature sensitivity of decomposition, we suggest that biogeochemically recalcitrant organic matter will respond the most sensitively to anticipated warming.

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Figure 1: Changes in respiration rate and apparent activation energy over time for 28 soils.
Figure 2: General scaling of biochemical recalcitrance and temperature sensitivity of decomposition for plant and SOM.
Figure 3: Scaling of biochemical recalcitrance and temperature sensitivity of decomposition compared across contrasts.

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Acknowledgements

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (DEB-0816629). We thank the many volunteers who provided soil for the experiment and R. Monson, P. Reich, M. Post and J. Schimel for providing helpful comments on the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA

    Joseph M. Craine

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

    Noah Fierer

  3. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

    Noah Fierer

  4. Department of Geography, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA

    Kendra K. McLauchlan

Authors
  1. Joseph M. Craine
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  2. Noah Fierer
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  3. Kendra K. McLauchlan
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Contributions

All authors designed the experiment. J.M.C. and K.K.M. carried out the measurements. J.M.C. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript, to which all authors contributed discussion and text.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph M. Craine.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Craine, J., Fierer, N. & McLauchlan, K. Widespread coupling between the rate and temperature sensitivity of organic matter decay. Nature Geosci 3, 854–857 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1009

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