scholarly journals Metabolic tradeoffs and heterogeneity in microbial responses to temperature determine the fate of litter carbon in simulations of a warmer world

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (24) ◽  
pp. 4875-4888
Author(s):  
Grace Pold ◽  
Seeta A. Sistla ◽  
Kristen M. DeAngelis

Abstract. Climate change has the potential to destabilize the Earth's massive terrestrial carbon (C) stocks, but the degree to which models project this destabilization to occur depends on the kinds and complexities of microbial processes they simulate. Of particular note is carbon use efficiency (CUE), which determines the fraction of C processed by microbes that is anabolized into microbial biomass rather than lost to the atmosphere and soil as carbon dioxide and extracellular products. The temperature sensitivity of CUE is often modeled as an intrinsically fixed (homogeneous) property of the community, which contrasts with empirical data and has unknown impacts on projected changes to the soil C cycle under global warming. We used the Decomposition Model of Enzymatic Traits (DEMENT) – which simulates taxon-level litter decomposition dynamics – to explore the effects of introducing organism-level heterogeneity into the CUE response to temperature for decomposition of leaf litter under 5 ∘C of warming. We found that allowing the CUE temperature response to differ between taxa facilitated increased loss of litter C, unless fungal taxa were specifically restricted to decreasing CUE with temperature. Litter C loss was exacerbated by variable and elevated CUE at higher temperature, which effectively lowered costs for extracellular enzyme production. Together these results implicate a role for diversity of taxon-level CUE responses in driving the fate of litter C in a warmer world within DEMENT, which should be explored within the framework of additional model structures and validated with empirical studies.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Pold ◽  
Seeta A. Sistla ◽  
Kristen M. DeAngelis

Abstract. Climate change has the potential to destabilize the Earth’s massive terrestrial carbon (C) stocks, but the degree to which models project this destabilization to occur depends on the kinds and complexities of microbial processes they simulate. Of particular note is carbon use efficiency (CUE), which determines the fraction of C processed by microbes that is anabolized into microbial biomass rather than being lost to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The temperature sensitivity of CUE is often modeled as a homogeneous property of the community, which contrasts with empirical data and has unknown impacts on projected changes to the soil carbon cycle under global warming. We used the DEMENT model – which simulates taxon-level litter decomposition dynamics – to explore the effects of introducing organism-level heterogeneity into the CUE response to temperature for decomposition of leaf litter under 5 °C of warming. We found that allowing CUE temperature response to differ between taxa facilitated increased loss of litter C, unless fungal taxa were specifically restricted to decreasing CUE with temperature. Increased loss of litter C was observed when the growth of a larger microbial biomass pool was fueled by higher community-level average CUE at higher temperature in the heterogeneous microbial community, with effectively lower costs for extracellular enzyme production. Together these results implicate a role for diversity of taxon-level CUE responses in driving the fate of litter C in a warmer world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efrén López-Blanco ◽  
Jean-François Exbrayat ◽  
Magnus Lund ◽  
Torben R. Christensen ◽  
Mikkel P. Tamstorf ◽  
...  

Abstract. There is a significant knowledge gap in the current state of the terrestrial carbon (C) budget. Recent studies have highlighted a poor understanding particularly of C pool transit times and of whether productivity or biomass dominate these biases. The Arctic, accounting for approximately 50 % of the global soil organic C stocks, has an important role in the global C cycle. Here, we use the CARbon DAta MOdel (CARDAMOM) data-assimilation system to produce pan-Arctic terrestrial C cycle analyses for 2000–2015. This approach avoids using traditional plant functional type or steady-state assumptions. We integrate a range of data (soil organic C, leaf area index, biomass, and climate) to determine the most likely state of the high-latitude C cycle at a 1∘ × 1∘ resolution and also to provide general guidance about the controlling biases in transit times. On average, CARDAMOM estimates regional mean rates of photosynthesis of 565 g C m−2 yr−1 (90 % confidence interval between the 5th and 95th percentiles: 428, 741), autotrophic respiration of 270 g C m−2 yr−1 (182, 397) and heterotrophic respiration of 219 g C m−2 yr−1 (31, 1458), suggesting a pan-Arctic sink of −67 (−287, 1160) g Cm−2 yr−1, weaker in tundra and stronger in taiga. However, our confidence intervals remain large (and so the region could be a source of C), reflecting uncertainty assigned to the regional data products. We show a clear spatial and temporal agreement between CARDAMOM analyses and different sources of assimilated and independent data at both pan-Arctic and local scales but also identify consistent biases between CARDAMOM and validation data. The assimilation process requires clearer error quantification for leaf area index (LAI) and biomass products to resolve these biases. Mapping of vegetation C stocks and change over time and soil C ages linked to soil C stocks is required for better analytical constraint. Comparing CARDAMOM analyses to global vegetation models (GVMs) for the same period, we conclude that transit times of vegetation C are inconsistently simulated in GVMs due to a combination of uncertainties from productivity and biomass calculations. Our findings highlight that GVMs need to focus on constraining both current vegetation C stocks and net primary production to improve a process-based understanding of C cycle dynamics in the Arctic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1834) ◽  
pp. 20210084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rattan Lal ◽  
Curtis Monger ◽  
Luke Nave ◽  
Pete Smith

The soil carbon (C) stock, comprising soil organic C (SOC) and soil inorganic C (SIC) and being the largest reservoir of the terrestrial biosphere, is a critical part of the global C cycle. Soil has been a source of greenhouse gases (GHGs) since the dawn of settled agriculture about 10 millenia ago. Soils of agricultural ecosystems are depleted of their SOC stocks and the magnitude of depletion is greater in those prone to accelerated erosion by water and wind and other degradation processes. Adoption of judicious land use and science-based management practices can lead to re-carbonization of depleted soils and make them a sink for atmospheric C. Soils in humid climates have potential to increase storage of SOC and those in arid and semiarid climates have potential to store both SOC and SIC. Payments to land managers for sequestration of C in soil, based on credible measurement of changes in soil C stocks at farm or landscape levels, are also important for promoting adoption of recommended land use and management practices. In conjunction with a rapid and aggressive reduction in GHG emissions across all sectors of the economy, sequestration of C in soil (and vegetation) can be an important negative emissions method for limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2°C This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of soils in delivering Nature's Contributions to People’.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Murray-Tortarolo ◽  
P. Friedlingstein ◽  
S. Sitch ◽  
V. J. Jaramillo ◽  
F. Murguía-Flores ◽  
...  

Abstract. We modeled the carbon (C) cycle in Mexico with a process-based approach. We used different available products (satellite data, field measurements, models and flux towers) to estimate C stocks and fluxes in the country at three different time frames: present (defined as the period 2000–2005), the past century (1901–2000) and the remainder of this century (2010–2100). Our estimate of the gross primary productivity (GPP) for the country was 2137 ± 1023 TgC yr−1 and a total C stock of 34 506 ± 7483 TgC, with 20 347 ± 4622 TgC in vegetation and 14 159 ± 3861 in the soil.Contrary to other current estimates for recent decades, our results showed that Mexico was a C sink over the period 1990–2009 (+31 TgC yr−1) and that C accumulation over the last century amounted to 1210 ± 1040 TgC. We attributed this sink to the CO2 fertilization effect on GPP, which led to an increase of 3408 ± 1060 TgC, while both climate and land use reduced the country C stocks by −458 ± 1001 and −1740 ± 878 TgC, respectively. Under different future scenarios, the C sink will likely continue over the 21st century, with decreasing C uptake as the climate forcing becomes more extreme. Our work provides valuable insights on relevant driving processes of the C cycle such as the role of drought in drylands (e.g., grasslands and shrublands) and the impact of climate change on the mean residence time of soil C in tropical ecosystems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Karlsson ◽  
Svetlana Serikova ◽  
Sergey N. Vorobyev ◽  
Gerard Rocher-Ros ◽  
Blaize Denfeld ◽  
...  

AbstractHigh-latitude regions play a key role in the carbon (C) cycle and climate system. An important question is the degree of mobilization and atmospheric release of vast soil C stocks, partly stored in permafrost, with amplified warming of these regions. A fraction of this C is exported to inland waters and emitted to the atmosphere, yet these losses are poorly constrained and seldom accounted for in assessments of high-latitude C balances. This is particularly relevant for Western Siberia, with its extensive peatland C stocks, which can be strongly sensitive to the ongoing changes in climate. Here we quantify C emission from inland waters, including the Ob’ River (Arctic’s largest watershed), across all permafrost zones of Western Siberia. We show that the inland water C emission is high (0.08–0.10 Pg C yr−1) and of major significance in the regional C cycle, largely exceeding (7–9 times) C export to the Arctic Ocean and reaching nearly half (35–50%) of the region’s land C uptake. This important role of C emission from inland waters highlights the need for coupled land–water studies to understand the contemporary C cycle and its response to warming.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Zangrando ◽  
Maria del Carmen Villoslada Hidalgo ◽  
Clara Turetta ◽  
Nicoletta Cannone ◽  
Francesco Malfasi ◽  
...  

<p>Climate Change (CC) has evident impacts on the biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems.</p><p>Soil is the third largest reservoir of carbon, next to the lithosphere and the oceans, and stores approximately 1500 Gt in the top1 m depth.  Even small changes in soil C stocks could have a vast impact on atmospheric CO<sub>2 </sub>concentration. Elevated surface temperature can substantially affect global C budgets and produce positive or negative feedbacks to climate change. Therefore, understanding the response of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks to warming is of critical importance to evaluate the feedbacks between terrestrial C cycle and climate change.</p><p>In comparison to other ecosystems, the areas at high altitudes and latitudes are the most vulnerable. In permafrost areas of the Northern Hemisphere the CC has already determined an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, shrub vegetation and variation in the composition of microbial communities. While numerous studies have been performed in Arctic, much less numerous are available for high altitude areas. These areas are a quarter of the emerged lands  and have suffered strong impacts from the CC. Mountain permafrost makes up 14% of global permafrost, stores large quantities of organic carbon (SOC), and can release large quantities of CO<sub>2</sub> due to climate change. However, permafrost contribution to the IPCC global budget has not yet been correctly quantified, in particular for ecosystems of prairie and shrubland, which alone could incorporate over 80Pg of C between soil and biomass. In the last decades, the plant component has undergone migration of species to higher altitudes, expansion of shrubs, variations in floristic composition and dominance, variations in area distribution. The expansion of the shrubs accelerates the regression of alpine meadows and snow valleys.</p><p>The sampling activities have been carried out in July and September, from September 2017 to July 2019 in an area near Stelvio Pass (2,758 m a.s.l.) (Italian Central-Eastern Alps) along an altitude gradient.   Two sampling sites located at 2600 m a.s.l. and 2200 m a.s.l. in altitude, corresponding to about 3° C difference in the average annual air temperature were chosen. At the 2600 m site, warming experiments using open-top chambers (OTCs) to investigate how climate warming affects SOC were performed.</p><p>In order to characterize the SOM (Soil Organic Matter), Total carbon (TC), Organic carbon (OC), Total Nitrogen (TN) and Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) were determined in soils. TC and TN were determined in biomass. In both soils and biomass were analyzed to quantify the distribution of stable isotopes of C and N, δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>15</sup>N.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (16) ◽  
pp. e2020790118
Author(s):  
Xiankai Lu ◽  
Peter M. Vitousek ◽  
Qinggong Mao ◽  
Frank S. Gilliam ◽  
Yiqi Luo ◽  
...  

Terrestrial ecosystem carbon (C) sequestration plays an important role in ameliorating global climate change. While tropical forests exert a disproportionately large influence on global C cycling, there remains an open question on changes in below-ground soil C stocks with global increases in nitrogen (N) deposition, because N supply often does not constrain the growth of tropical forests. We quantified soil C sequestration through more than a decade of continuous N addition experiment in an N-rich primary tropical forest. Results showed that long-term N additions increased soil C stocks by 7 to 21%, mainly arising from decreased C output fluxes and physical protection mechanisms without changes in the chemical composition of organic matter. A meta-analysis further verified that soil C sequestration induced by excess N inputs is a general phenomenon in tropical forests. Notably, soil N sequestration can keep pace with soil C, based on consistent C/N ratios under N additions. These findings provide empirical evidence that below-ground C sequestration can be stimulated in mature tropical forests under excess N deposition, which has important implications for predicting future terrestrial sinks for both elevated anthropogenic CO2 and N deposition. We further developed a conceptual model hypothesis depicting how soil C sequestration happens under chronic N deposition in N-limited and N-rich ecosystems, suggesting a direction to incorporate N deposition and N cycling into terrestrial C cycle models to improve the predictability on C sink strength as enhanced N deposition spreads from temperate into tropical systems.


2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 833-847 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augusto Miguel Nascimento Lima ◽  
Ivo Ribeiro da Silva ◽  
Jose Luis Stape ◽  
Eduardo Sá Mendonça ◽  
Roberto Ferreira Novais ◽  
...  

Soil organic matter (SOM) plays an important role in carbon (C) cycle and soil quality. Considering the complexity of factors that control SOM cycling and the long time it usually takes to observe changes in SOM stocks, modeling constitutes a very important tool to understand SOM cycling in forest soils. The following hypotheses were tested: (i) soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks would be higher after several rotations of eucalyptus than in low-productivity pastures; (ii) SOC values simulated by the Century model would describe the data better than the mean of observations. So, the aims of the current study were: (i) to evaluate the SOM dynamics using the Century model to simulate the changes of C stocks for two eucalyptus chronosequences in the Rio Doce Valley, Minas Gerais State, Brazil; and (ii) to compare the C stocks simulated by Century with the C stocks measured in soils of different Orders and regions of the Rio Doce Valley growing eucalyptus. In Belo Oriente (BO), short-rotation eucalyptus plantations had been cultivated for 4.0; 13.0, 22.0, 32.0 and 34.0 years, at a lower elevation and in a warmer climate, while in Virginópolis (VG), these time periods were 8.0, 19.0 and 33.0 years, at a higher elevation and in a milder climate. Soil samples were collected from the 0-20 cm layer to estimate C stocks. Results indicate that the C stocks simulated by the Century model decreased after 37 years of poorly managed pastures in areas previously covered by native forest in the regions of BO and VG. The substitution of poorly managed pastures by eucalyptus in the early 1970´s led to an average increase of C of 0.28 and 0.42 t ha-1 year-1 in BO and VG, respectively. The measured C stocks under eucalyptus in distinct soil Orders and independent regions with variable edapho-climate conditions were not far from the values estimated by the Century model (root mean square error - RMSE = 20.9; model efficiency - EF = 0.29) despite the opposite result obtained with the statistical procedure to test the identity of analytical methods. Only for lower soil C stocks, the model over-estimated the C stock in the 0-20 cm layer. Thus, the Century model is highly promising to detect changes in C stocks in distinct soil orders under eucalyptus, as well as to indicate the impact of harvest residue management on SOM in future rotations.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 797-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Henry ◽  
R. Valentini ◽  
M. Bernoux

Abstract. The African continent plays a growing role in the carbon (C) cycle. However, Africa is one of the weakest links in our understanding of the global carbon cycle particularly when considering the soil compartment. Most of the soil organic carbon (SOC) estimates concern the global size of the soil C reservoir without indication on its distribution, or if given, limited to the contribution of a large ecosystems or region. The aim of the study is i) to assess the original soil C stocks (SOC) of Africa for the different countries and Ecoregions, and ii) to compare SOC estimates from different soil properties databases and digital maps. Four recent global digital soil maps and five soil properties databases were used to estimate the SOC for different soil layers in Africa. Those databases hold between 1799 and 4043 soil profiles which are considered to represent the soil units showed on a 0.5 by 0.5 degree soil maps of Africa. SOC of Africa ranged 133 420–184 116 Tg for 0–100 cm soil layer. The most recent databases estimated 166 397 Tg C which corresponded to 9% of the global SOC stock and 68% of the terrestrial C pool of Africa. Average SOC ranges 0.4–8.2 kg m−2 at national scale and 1.53–6.61 kg m−2 for ecoregions. Using different soil database or spatial data leads to up to 30% of difference. These quantities indicate a great potential to develop sink activities through soil C sequestration activities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tânia Pinheiro ◽  
Ka Ying Florence Lip ◽  
Estéfani García-Ríos ◽  
Amparo Querol ◽  
José Teixeira ◽  
...  

AbstractElucidation of temperature tolerance mechanisms in yeast is essential for enhancing cellular robustness of strains, providing more economically and sustainable processes. We investigated the differential responses of three distinct Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, an industrial wine strain, ADY5, a laboratory strain, CEN.PK113-7D and an industrial bioethanol strain, Ethanol Red, grown at sub- and supra-optimal temperatures under chemostat conditions. We employed anaerobic conditions, mimicking the industrial processes. The proteomic profile of these strains in all conditions was performed by sequential window acquisition of all theoretical spectra-mass spectrometry (SWATH-MS), allowing the quantification of 997 proteins, data available via ProteomeXchange (PXD016567). Our analysis demonstrated that temperature responses differ between the strains; however, we also found some common responsive proteins, revealing that the response to temperature involves general stress and specific mechanisms. Overall, sub-optimal temperature conditions involved a higher remodeling of the proteome. The proteomic data evidenced that the cold response involves strong repression of translation-related proteins as well as induction of amino acid metabolism, together with components related to protein folding and degradation while, the high temperature response mainly recruits amino acid metabolism. Our study provides a global and thorough insight into how growth temperature affects the yeast proteome, which can be a step forward in the comprehension and improvement of yeast thermotolerance.


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