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Research article2022Peer reviewed

Microbial formation and stabilisation of soil organic carbon is regulated by carbon substrate identity and mineral composition

Wang, Shuang; Redmile-Gordon, Marc; Shahbaz, Muhammad; Ge, Tida; Zhang, Ming; Wu, Yichao; Liu, Jun; Huang, Qiaoyun; Cai, Peng

Abstract

The view that soil organic C (SOC) is formed mainly from non-metabolised and recalcitrant organic residues is being challenged by an emerging view that metabolic by-products form more stable associations with soil minerals. However, the effects of C substrate identity and soil mineral composition (and interactions) on microbial physiology and SOC formation are still not well understood. We added contrasting substrates (glucose, alanine and a mixture of glucose, alanine, and oxalic acid) into artificial soils of varying mineral composition (montmorillonite, kaolinite, and kaolinite plus goethite and hematite) for 12 weeks. We found that glucose led to 1.45 and 1.75 times more SOC formation than alanine and the mixed substrate, respectively. Montmorillonitebased soils gained approximately 1.3 times more SOC compared to the other two soils. Compared with kaolinite-only soils, the inclusion of goethite and hematite had a positive effect on total SOC, extracellular C and biologically stable C when amended with alanine, but a negative effect on these SOC fractions when amended with glucose. Soils with greater SOC formation were associated with high microbial C use efficiency (CUE) and extracellular C, suggesting that spatial allocation by the microbial biomass is pivotal for creating stable SOC. Fungi-dominated soils typically had a higher CUE, which was positively correlated with the formation of new SOC. These results suggest that the identity of plant inputs will have a strong bearing on the formation of SOC via interactions with the soil microbial community and soil mineralogy.

Keywords

Soil organic matter; Artificial root exudates; Carbon use efficiency; Phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs); Microbial biomass; Soil mineralogy

Published in

Geoderma
2022, Volume: 414, article number: 115762Publisher: ELSEVIER

    Sustainable Development Goals

    SDG15 Life on land

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Soil Science

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.115762

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/117339