Articles | Volume 19, issue 14
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3381-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3381-2022
BG Letters
 | Highlight paper
 | 
20 Jul 2022
BG Letters | Highlight paper |  | 20 Jul 2022

Soil carbon loss in warmed subarctic grasslands is rapid and restricted to topsoil

Niel Verbrigghe, Niki I. W. Leblans, Bjarni D. Sigurdsson, Sara Vicca, Chao Fang, Lucia Fuchslueger, Jennifer L. Soong, James T. Weedon, Christopher Poeplau, Cristina Ariza-Carricondo, Michael Bahn, Bertrand Guenet, Per Gundersen, Gunnhildur E. Gunnarsdóttir, Thomas Kätterer, Zhanfeng Liu, Marja Maljanen, Sara Marañón-Jiménez, Kathiravan Meeran, Edda S. Oddsdóttir, Ivika Ostonen, Josep Peñuelas, Andreas Richter, Jordi Sardans, Páll Sigurðsson, Margaret S. Torn, Peter M. Van Bodegom, Erik Verbruggen, Tom W. N. Walker, Håkan Wallander, and Ivan A. Janssens

Related authors

Evaluating the Tea Bag Index approach for different management practices in agroecosystems using long-term field experiments in Austria and Sweden
Maria Regina Gmach, Martin Anders Bolinder, Lorenzo Menichetti, Thomas Kätterer, Heide Spiegel, Olle Åkesson, Jürgen Kurt Friedel, Andreas Surböck, Agnes Schweinzer, and Taru Sandén
SOIL, 10, 407–423, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-407-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-407-2024, 2024
Short summary
Estimations of soil metal accumulation or leaching potentials under climate change scenarios: the example of copper on a European scale
Laura Sereni, Julie-Maï Paris, Isabelle Lamy, and Bertrand Guenet
SOIL, 10, 367–380, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-367-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-367-2024, 2024
Short summary
High-resolution Carbon cycling data from 2019 to 2021 measured at six Austrian LTER sites
Thomas Dirnböck, Michael Bahn, Eugenio Diaz-Pines, Ika Djukic, Michael Englisch, Karl Gartner, Günther Gollobich, Armin Hofbauer, Johannes Ingrisch, Barbara Kitzler, Karl Knaebel, Johannes Kobler, Andreas Maier, Christoph Wohner, Ivo Offenthaler, Johannes Peterseil, Gisela Pröll, Sarah Venier, Sophie Zechmeister, Anita Zolles, and Stephan Glatzel
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-110,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-110, 2024
Preprint under review for ESSD
Short summary
Using Free Air CO2 Enrichment data to constrain land surface model projections of the terrestrial carbon cycle
Nina Raoult, Louis-Axel Edouard-Rambaut, Nicolas Vuichard, Vladislav Bastrikov, Anne Sofie Lansø, Bertrand Guenet, and Philippe Peylin
Biogeosciences, 21, 1017–1036, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-1017-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-1017-2024, 2024
Short summary
Spatial biases reduce the ability of Earth system models to simulate soil heterotrophic respiration fluxes
Bertrand Guenet, Jérémie Orliac, Lauric Cécillon, Olivier Torres, Laura Sereni, Philip A. Martin, Pierre Barré, and Laurent Bopp
Biogeosciences, 21, 657–669, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-657-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-657-2024, 2024
Short summary

Related subject area

Earth System Science/Response to Global Change: Climate Change
Mapping the future afforestation distribution of China constrained by a national afforestation plan and climate change
Shuaifeng Song, Xuezhen Zhang, and Xiaodong Yan
Biogeosciences, 21, 2839–2858, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2839-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2839-2024, 2024
Short summary
Southern Ocean phytoplankton under climate change: a shifting balance of bottom-up and top-down control
Tianfei Xue, Jens Terhaar, A. E. Friederike Prowe, Thomas L. Frölicher, Andreas Oschlies, and Ivy Frenger
Biogeosciences, 21, 2473–2491, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2473-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2473-2024, 2024
Short summary
Coherency and time lag analyses between MODIS vegetation indices and climate across forests and grasslands in the European temperate zone
Kinga Kulesza and Agata Hościło
Biogeosciences, 21, 2509–2527, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2509-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2509-2024, 2024
Short summary
Direct foliar phosphorus uptake from wildfire ash
Anton Lokshin, Daniel Palchan, and Avner Gross
Biogeosciences, 21, 2355–2365, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2355-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2355-2024, 2024
Short summary
The effect of forest cover changes on the regional climate conditions in Europe during the period 1986–2015
Marcus Breil, Vanessa K. M. Schneider, and Joaquim G. Pinto
Biogeosciences, 21, 811–824, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-811-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-811-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Abramoff, R. Z., Torn, M. S., Georgiou, K., Tang, J., and Riley, W. J.: Soil Organic Matter Temperature Sensitivity Cannot Be Directly Inferred from Spatial Gradients, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 33, 761–776, 2019. a
Allison, S. D., Wallenstein, M. D., and Bradford, M. A.: Soil-Carbon Response to Warming Dependent on Microbial Physiology, Nat. Geosci., 3, 336–340, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo846, 2010. a
Alvarez, G., Shahzad, T., Andanson, L., Bahn, M., Wallenstein, M. D., and Fontaine, S.: Catalytic Power of Enzymes Decreases with Temperature: New Insights for Understanding Soil C Cycling and Microbial Ecology under Warming, Glob. Change Biol., 24, 4238–4250, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14281, 2018. a
Arnalds, O.: The Soils of Iceland, World Soils Book Series, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9621-7, 2015. a, b
Bárcena, T. G., Gundersen, P., and Vesterdal, L.: Afforestation Effects on SOC in Former Cropland: Oak and Spruce Chronosequences Resampled after 13 Years, Glob. Change Biol., 20, 2938–2952, 2014. a
Download
Co-editor-in-chief
The authors adopted a new and attractive approach, based on the use of thermal springs appearing at different times, to study the short-term and long-term (> 50 years) effect of warming on the soil C stock under subarctic grasslands. This new approach allows to take a new look at the question of a positive feedback between temperature and soils that can amplify global warming. Indeed, most studies on this subject are based on warming experiments conducted over the short term (some years) or on questionable correlative approaches where the temperature co-varies with many other factors (e.g., study of soil C stocks along latitudinal temperature gradients). Their study challenges the current dominant view on the effect of warming on the dynamics of SOM. Indeed, results suggest that soil C losses in the subarctic grasslands studied cease after 5 years of warming. These observations corroborate those obtained in the rare ecosystem warming experiments maintained beyond 10 years. In addition, results suggest that the C stocks present in the deep soil horizons, where plant roots are not or hardly present, are not affected by warming. These unexpected discoveries, together with other recent observations, show the glaring lack of knowledge on the fundamental mechanisms of the effect of temperature on catalytic processes, which seriously compromises our ability to predict the soil-climate feedback.
Short summary
In subarctic grassland on a geothermal warming gradient, we found large reductions in topsoil carbon stocks, with carbon stocks linearly declining with warming intensity. Most importantly, however, we observed that soil carbon stocks stabilised within 5 years of warming and remained unaffected by warming thereafter, even after > 50 years of warming. Moreover, in contrast to the large topsoil carbon losses, subsoil carbon stocks remained unaffected after > 50 years of soil warming.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint