Microorganisms are key to storing carbon in soils

2023-05-29 17:02:20

MADRID, 29 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Microbial carbon use efficiency is at least four times more influential than other biological or environmental factors when it comes to global soil carbon storage.

It is the result of a study, carried out by an international team of scientists, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jenawhich they consider has implications for improving soil health and mitigating climate change.

Soils serve as crucial carbon sinks in the battle against climate change, storing more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem and three times as much as the atmosphere. However, the processes involved in carbon storage in the soil have not been well understood. While microorganisms have long been recognized as important contributors to the accumulation and loss of soil organic carbon (SOC), the specific contributions of different biological and environmental processes have remained largely unknown.

The study, published in Nature, used a novel approach to quantify the processes that determine soil carbon dynamics. The international research team extensively explored the relationship between carbon use efficiency, SOC conservation, and various factors such as climate, vegetation, and soil properties. The study represents the first successful integration of data sets on a global scale, an explicit model of microbial processes, data assimilation, deep learning, and meta-analysis to examine this relationship.

Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) measures the ratio of carbon used by microbes for growth versus metabolism. When carbon is used for microbial growth, it is incorporated into microbial cells, supporting their storage in the soil. Conversely, when carbon is used for metabolism, it is released into the air as carbon dioxide, which acts as a greenhouse gas. The study emphasizes that microbial growth is more crucial than metabolism in determining the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

“We found that microbial carbon use efficiency is the most important factor in soil carbon storage,” he says. it’s a statement Feng Tao, the first author of the study and a visiting PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, under the direction of the department of Professor Markus Reichstein.

While soil carbon dynamics have been studied for many years, previous research has mainly focused on individual processes, such as carbon input from leaf litter and roots or the release of carbon dioxide into the air during soil decomposition. organic matter. “The study shows the importance of microbial traits for carbon cycles and applies an innovative strategy, which we proposed a few years ago, for its estimation”, explains Markus Reichstein, study co-author and director of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. .

These new insights highlight the need for further studies on methods to improve soil carbon sequestration by microbes, the influence of different types of microbes and substrates on soil carbon storage, and on agricultural management practices. Understand the microbial processes underlying carbon use efficiency and their dependence on environmental factors can help predict SOC reactions in response to a changing climate.