Land use drives the distribution of free, physically protected, and chemically protected soil organic carbon storage at a global scale
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration is increasingly emphasized as a climate mitigation solution, as scientists, policy makers, and land managers prioritize enhancing belowground C storage. To identify key underlying drivers of total SOC distributions, we compiled a global dataset of soil C stocks held in three chemical forms, reflecting different mechanisms of organic C protection: free particulate organic C (fPOC), physically protected particulate organic C (oPOC), and mineral-protected soil organic C (mSOC). In our dataset, these three SOC pools were differentially sensitive to the effects of climate, soil mineralogy, and ecosystem type, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between physical and chemical C protection mechanisms. C stocks in all three pools varied among ecosystems: cropland soils stored the least amount in each pool, with forest and grassland soils both containing significantly more fPOC (40%–60% greater in each ecosystem) than croplands. oPOC stocks did not significantly differ from zero in croplands but were substantial in forest and grassland soils. Meanwhile, mSOC stocks were the greatest in grasslands and shrublands (90%–100% greater than croplands). In cropland soils, there were no major effects of tillage on C storage in any of the three pools, while manure addition enhanced mSOC stocks, especially when added with inorganic N. Thus, the human land use intensity in croplands appears to reduce SOC storage in all major pools, depending upon management; retaining native vegetation should be emphasized to maintain current global SOC stocks.
Date Issued
2024-09-01
Date Acceptance
2024-08-20
Citation
Global Change Biology, 2024, 30 (9)
ISSN
1354-1013
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Global Change Biology
Volume
30
Issue
9
Copyright Statement
© 2024 The Author(s). Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/39295217
Subjects
AGGREGATE
Biodiversity & Conservation
Biodiversity Conservation
climate mitigation
CLIMATE-CHANGE
Ecology
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
FOREST SOIL
FRACTIONATION METHODS
land use
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
LIGHT-FRACTION
MAOM
MATTER DYNAMICS
NITROGEN
PARTICULATE
POM
Science & Technology
SEQUESTRATION
soil density fractionation
soil organic carbon
STABILIZATION
tillage
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
e17507
Date Publish Online
2024-09-18