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Weaker Soil Carbon–Climate Feedbacks Resulting from Microbial and Abiotic Interactions

January 1, 2015

Objective

  • Improve predictions of soil carbon–climate feedbacks
  • Develop, test, and apply a mechanistic model of decomposition to predict centennial-scale interactions between terrestrial carbon cycling and climate

Research

We developed a thermodynamically-based microbe-explicit soil carbon decomposition model and analyzed the

  • temperature sensitivity of bulk soil carbon decomposition and microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) and
  • standard methods to characterize substrate “recalcitrance.”

Model predictions of (a) temperature sensitivities of decomposition (Q10) and (b) carbon use efficiencies (CUE) for rigid and plastic microbes.
Model predictions of (a) temperature sensitivities of decomposition (Q10) and (b) carbon use efficiencies (CUE) for rigid and plastic microbes.

Results/Impacts

  • Our study challenges the concepts of static Q10 and CUE, and the “labile vs. recalcitrant” substrate characterization used in most soil biogeochemical models.
  • We predict more variable but weaker soil carbon–climate feedbacks than current approaches.
  • Model will be integrated in ACME-CLM.

Tang, Jinyun, and William J. Riley. January 1, 2015. “Weaker Carbon–Climate Feedbacks Resulting from Microbial and Abiotic Interactions.” Nature Clim. Change, 5(1):56–60. doi:10.1038/nclimate2438.

Weaker Soil Carbon-Climate Feedbacks Resulting from Microbial and Abiotic Interactions
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