Published in

Nature Research, Nature, 7367(478), p. 49-56, 2011

DOI: 10.1038/nature10386

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property

Journal article published in 2011 by Michael W. I. Schmidt, Margaret S. Torn, Samuel Abiven ORCID, Thorsten Dittmar, Georg Guggenberger ORCID, M. W.; Torn M. S.; Abiven S.; Dittmar T.; Guggenberger G.; Janssens I. A.; Kleber M.; Kögel-Knabner I.; Lehmann J.; Manning D. A. C.; Nannipieri P.; Rasse D. P.; Weiner S.; Trumbore S. E. Schmidt, Ivan A. Janssens, Markus Kleber, Ingrid Kögel-Knabner ORCID, Johannes Lehmann, David A. C. Manning, Paolo Nannipieri, Daniel P. Rasse, Steve Weiner, Susan E. Trumbore
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Upload
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Upload
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Policy details
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Globally, soil organic matter (SOM) contains more than three times as much carbon as either the atmosphere or terrestrial vegetation. Yet it remains largely unknown why some SOM persists for millennia whereas other SOM decomposes readily—and this limits our ability to predict how soils will respond to climate change. Recent analytical and experimental advances have demonstrated that molecular structure alone does not control SOM stability: in fact, environmental and biological controls predominate. Here we propose ways to include this understanding in a new generation of experiments and soil carbon models, thereby improving predictions of the SOM response to global warming.