Articles | Volume 23, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-23-3995-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-23-3995-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
19 Jun 2026
Research article |
| 19 Jun 2026
| 19 Jun 2026
Divergent carbon use efficiency-growth rate tradeoff in popular biological growth models
Jinyun Tang
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Molecular Ecology and Biogeochemistry, Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
William J. Riley
Department of Molecular Ecology and Biogeochemistry, Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Gianna L. Marschmann
Department of Molecular Ecology and Biogeochemistry, Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Eoin L. Brodie
Department of Molecular Ecology and Biogeochemistry, Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
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Short summary
Carbon Use Efficiency (CUE) measures how biological organisms use carbon to synthesize new biomass, inferred to first increase and then decrease with specific growth rate. Our analysis of six biological growth models reveals that source-driven models fail to capture this relationship, while sink-driven models, using a reserve biomass pool, succeed. Existing biogeochemical models often depict a deterministic CUE-controlling factor relationship, which we find should be modeled dynamically instead.
Carbon Use Efficiency (CUE) measures how biological organisms use carbon to synthesize new...
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