The influence of soil communities on the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration

Nature Ecology & Evolution
Alice S A Johnston, Richard M Sibly

Abstract

Soil respiration represents a major carbon flux between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, and is expected to accelerate under climate warming. Despite its importance in climate change forecasts, however, our understanding of the effects of temperature on soil respiration (RS) is incomplete. Using a metabolic ecology approach we link soil biota metabolism, community composition and heterotrophic activity to predict RS rates across five biomes. We find that accounting for the ecological mechanisms underpinning decomposition processes predicts climatological RS variations observed in an independent dataset (n = 312). The importance of community composition is evident because without it RS is substantially underestimated. With increasing temperature, we predict a latitudinal increase in RS temperature sensitivity, with Q10 values ranging between 2.33 ± 0.01 in tropical forests to 2.72 ± 0.03 in tundra. This global trend has been widely observed, but has not previously been linked to soil communities.

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Citations

Jun 20, 2019·Global Change Biology·Jian-Sheng YePablo García-Palacios
Apr 9, 2020·Oecologia·Alice S A Johnston, Richard M Sibly
Nov 14, 2019·Nature Communications·Thomas P SmithSamrāt Pawar
Jan 17, 2021·Nature Communications·Jiesi LeiYunfeng Yang
Feb 24, 2021·Nature Ecology & Evolution·Alice S A JohnstonChris Venditti
Jun 29, 2021·Environmental Pollution·Gurpreet KaurSatinder Kaur Brar
Jan 23, 2022·The Science of the Total Environment·Xiao-Min ZengQiaoyun Huang
Feb 2, 2022·The New Phytologist·Vincent E J JasseyEnrique Lara

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