Negative priming of soil organic matter following long-term in situ warming of sub-arctic soils

Verbrigghe, Niel; Meeran, Kathiravan; Bahn, Michael; Fuchslueger, Lucia; Janssens, Ivan A.; Richter, Andreas; Sigurðsson, Bjarni D.; Soong, Jennifer L.; Vicca, Sara

doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2021.115652

Cited by 17 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…In the absence of plants, the accumulation of soil mineral N in the experiments may be related to net N mineralization (and negligible N leaching or gaseous loss) during the preincubation. Other studies found that although there was a significant difference in PE between labile and more stable SOC, this result was independent of soil N availability (Miao et al ., 2017; Mason‐Jones et al ., 2018; Verbrigghe et al ., 2022). However, these studies did not involve living plants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A distinct sensitivity to the priming effect between labile and stable soil organic carbon

Zhang

Feng

et al. 2022

New Phytologist

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Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a mixture of various carbon (C) compounds with different stability, which can be distinctly affected by the priming effect (PE). However, little is known about how the PE changes with SOC stability.We address this issue by combining results from two experiments and a metaanalysis. We found that the PE increased with the prolongation of soil preincubation, suggesting that higher PE occurred for more stable SOC than for labile SOC. This was further supported by the metaanalysis of 42 observations. There were significant negative relationships between the difference in PE (ΔPE) between labile and more stable SOC and their differences in SOC, microbial biomass C and soil C : N ratio, indicating that soil C availability exerts a vital control on ΔPE.We conclude that, compared with labile SOC, stable SOC can be more vulnerable to priming once microbes are provided with exogenous C substrates. This high vulnerability of stable SOC to priming warrants more attention in future studies on SOC cycling and global change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A distinct sensitivity to the priming effect between labile and stable soil organic carbon

Zhang

Feng

et al. 2022

New Phytologist

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“…Positive priming effects are particularly concerning for ecosystems like the subarctic and the arctic, because these regions are particularly sensitive to climate change (Rantanen et al 2022) and their soils have large C stocks, which could critically impact the global carbon cycle if mobilised to the atmosphere as CO2 (Su-Jong Jeong et al, 2018). On the other hand, recent studies show that warming arctic soils can also lead to significant negative priming effects (Verbrigghe at al. 2022), which has also been observed in substrate-addition experiments with arctic soils (Wild et al 2023;Michel at al.…”

Section: Carbon Loss From Subarctic Organic Tundra Soils?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Vegetative stage and soil horizon determine direction and magnitude of rhizosphere priming effects in contrasting treeline soils

Michel,

Fontaine,

Revaillot

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Treelines in high latitudes and high altitudes are considered sentinels of global change. This manifests in accelerated encroachment of trees and shrubs and enhanced plant productivity, with currently unknown implications for the carbon balance of these biomes. Given the large soil organic carbon stocks in many treeline soils, we here wondered whether introducing highly productive plants would accelerate carbon cycling through rhizosphere priming effects and if certain soils would be more vulnerable to carbon loss from positive priming than others. To test this, organic and mineral soils were sampled above and below treelines in the Swedish sub-arctic and the Peruvian Andes. A greenhouse experiment was then performed to quantify plant-induced changes in soil mineralisation rates (rhizosphere priming effect) and new C formation using natural abundance labelling and the C4- species Cynodon dactylon. Several environmental, plant, soil and microbial parameter were monitored during the experiment to complement the observations on soil C cycling. Priming was predominantly positive at the beginning of the experiment, then systematically decreased in all soils during the plant growth season to be mostly negative at the end of the experiment at plant senescence. Independent of direction of priming, the magnitude of priming was always greater in organic than in corresponding mineral soils, which was best explained by the higher C contents of these soils. Integrated over the entire study period, the overall impact of priming (positive and negative) on the soil C balance was mostly negligible. Though, net soil C loss was observed in organic soils from the sub-arctic tundra in Sweden. Most notably, positive and negative priming effects were not mutually exclusive, rather omnipresent across ecosystems, depending on sampling time. The direction of priming seems to be fluctuating with plant productivity, rhizosphere carbon inputs and nutrient uptake. This highlights the need for integrative long-term studies if we aim to understand priming effects at ecosystem scale and greenhouse and laboratory studies must be validated in situ to enable reliable ecological upscaling.

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“…Temperature has been considered to affect PEs by changing the availability of microbially accessible C pools (Thiessen et al, 2013;Verbrigghe et al, 2022). Specifically, Melillo et al (2017) found that warming reduced the C pool available for microbial use in forest soil.…”

Section: Global Biogeochemical Cyclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Warming Reduces Priming Effect of Soil Organic Carbon Decomposition Along a Subtropical Elevation Gradient

Li,

Lyu,

Zhang

et al. 2024

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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The priming effects (PEs) of soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition is a crucial process affecting the C balance of terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is uncertainty about how PEs will respond to climate warming. In this study, we sampled soils along a subtropical elevation gradient in China and conducted a 126‐day lab‐incubation experiment with and without the addition of 13C‐labeled high‐bioavailability glucose or low‐bioavailability lignin. Based on the mean annual temperature (MAT) of each elevation (9.3–16.4°C), a temperature increase of 4°C was used to explore how PEs mediate the decomposition of SOC in response to warming. Our results showed that the magnitude of glucose‐induced PEs (PEglucose) was higher than lignin‐induced PEs (PElignin), with both PEs linearly increasing with MAT. Across the MAT (i.e., elevation) gradient, short‐term warming had a constant magnitude of negative effects on PEglucose, whereas rising MAT exacerbated the negative effects of short‐term warming on PElignin. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition decreased after adding glucose and lignin across the MAT gradient, suggesting that fresh C inputs may prime the microbial breakdown of labile SOC under warming. Taken together, warming alleviated SOC loss due to PEs through varying mechanisms depending on substrate bioavailability. Warming mediated the PEglucose by increasing available nitrogen and weakening microbial nitrogen‐mining but inhibited the PElignin by shifting from microbial nitrogen‐mining to microbial co‐metabolization. Our findings highlight the role of warming in regulating the PEs and suggest that incorporating the suppression effect of warming on PEs can contribute to the accurate prediction of soil C dynamics in a warming world.

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Negative priming of soil organic matter following long-term in situ warming of sub-arctic soils

Cited by 17 publications

References 67 publications

A distinct sensitivity to the priming effect between labile and stable soil organic carbon

A distinct sensitivity to the priming effect between labile and stable soil organic carbon

Vegetative stage and soil horizon determine direction and magnitude of rhizosphere priming effects in contrasting treeline soils

Warming Reduces Priming Effect of Soil Organic Carbon Decomposition Along a Subtropical Elevation Gradient

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