Parent material geochemistry – and not plant biomass – as the key factor shaping soil organic carbon stocks in European  alpine grasslands

Maier, Annina; Macfarlane, Maria E.; Griepentrog, Marco; Doetterl, Sebastian

doi:10.5194/bg-22-7337-2025

Articles | Volume 22, issue 22

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-7337-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-7337-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 22

Research article

|

27 Nov 2025

Research article |

| 27 Nov 2025

Parent material geochemistry – and not plant biomass – as the key factor shaping soil organic carbon stocks in European alpine grasslands

Annina Maier, Maria E. Macfarlane, Marco Griepentrog, and Sebastian Doetterl

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-7337-2025-supplement

Data sets

Datasets for Maier et al., Parent material geochemistry – and not plant biomass – as the key factor shaping soil organic carbon stocks in European alpine grasslands Annina Maier et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15282598

Model code and software

Code for Maier et al., Parent material geochemistry – and not plant biomass – as the key factor shaping soil organic carbon stocks in European alpine grasslands Annina Maier et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17195820

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Short summary

A systematic analysis of the interaction between pedo- and biosphere in shaping alpine soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks remains missing. Our regional-scale study of alpine SOC stocks across five parent materials shows that plant biomass stock is not a strong control of SOC stocks. Rather, the greatest SOC stocks are linked to more weathered soil profiles with higher Fe and Al pedogenic oxide content, showing the importance of parent material weatherability and geochemistry for SOC stabilization.