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Soil biogeochemistry

Subsoil carbon loss

Nature Geoscience volume 16, pages 284–285 (2023)Cite this article

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A field-based study of 4.5 years of whole-soil warming reveals that warming stimulates loss of structurally complex organic carbon at the same rate as that for bulk organic carbon in subsoil.

Soils store significantly more carbon than the atmosphere or vegetation. Global warming can stimulate losses of soil organic carbon (SOC) through increased microbial respiration, which potentially accelerates warming via positive carbon–climate feedback1. However, the magnitude of microbial and SOC responses to warming remains very uncertain2. This is due partly to the knowledge gap in our understanding of the decomposition response of different compounds in bulk SOC. For example, organic carbon with complex molecular structures is expected to be relatively more stable under warming, as it needs more energy than simple organic carbon for decomposition1. In Nature Geoscience, however, Zosso et al. show that warming stimulates rapid losses of plant-derived complex polymers and pyrogenic carbon in subsoil, suggesting a greater feedback of SOC with climate change3.

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Fig. 1: Effects of warming on soil carbon dynamics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, China

    Ji Chen

  2. Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark

    Ji Chen

  3. iCLIMATE Interdisciplinary Centre for Climate Change, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Ji Chen

  4. School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Yiqi Luo

  5. Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Robert L. Sinsabaugh

Authors
  1. Ji Chen
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  2. Yiqi Luo
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  3. Robert L. Sinsabaugh
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ji Chen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Chen, J., Luo, Y. & Sinsabaugh, R.L. Subsoil carbon loss. Nat. Geosci. 16, 284–285 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01164-9

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