Articles | Volume 18, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-189-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-189-2021
Research article
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12 Jan 2021
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 12 Jan 2021

Millennial-age glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) in forested mineral soils: 14C-based evidence for stabilization of microbial necromass

Hannah Gies, Frank Hagedorn, Maarten Lupker, Daniel Montluçon, Negar Haghipour, Tessa Sophia van der Voort, and Timothy Ian Eglinton

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AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
ED: Reconsider after major revisions (29 Oct 2020) by Yakov Kuzyakov
AR by Hannah Gies on behalf of the Authors (02 Nov 2020)  Author's response   Manuscript 
ED: Publish as is (21 Nov 2020) by Yakov Kuzyakov
AR by Hannah Gies on behalf of the Authors (25 Nov 2020)
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Short summary
Understanding controls on the persistence of organic matter in soils is essential to constrain its role in the carbon cycle. Emerging concepts suggest that the soil carbon pool is predominantly comprised of stabilized microbial residues. To test this hypothesis we isolated microbial membrane lipids from two Swiss soil profiles and measured their radiocarbon age. We find that the ages of these compounds are in the range of millenia and thus provide evidence for stabilized microbial mass in soils.
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