Leveraging NEON soil archives to link soil organic carbon stocks, persistence, and climate sensitivity at the continental scale
Abstract
The long-term soil carbon reservoir depends on the persistence of soil organic carbon (SOC) under changing climate regimes. Soil properties that may regulate SOC decomposition and climate sensitivity are highly spatially variable, both across ecosystems and by depth, challenging the prediction of future climate response. Here, we highlight divergence by ecosystem and depth as key predictors of SOC amount (stocks), persistence (via bulk radiocarbon measurements), and sensitivity to increased temperature and moisture (via incubation experiments). This work leveraged archived surface and subsoils from deep (up to 2-m) soil cores collected at 40 National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) sites. Using site-level data and a suite of soil characterization approaches, we show system-specific relationships between predictor variables and SOC metrics. In particular, we identified greater moisture sensitivity in Ca and Mg-dominated soils, but greater temperature sensitivity in Fe and Al-dominated soils. We use axes of climate variability to highlight where (across climate zones) predictors and metrics of SOC converge and diverge. These relationships may provide a conceptual starting point for improved spatially and soil property-explicit prediction of SOCresponse to global change.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMB104...03P
- Keywords:
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- 0414 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0419 Biomineralization;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0463 Microbe/mineral interactions;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0486 Soils/pedology;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES