Soil

a,b, Total soil C stocks (a) and the proportion of total soil C that is protected (mineral-associated) (b) as a function of the mean annual temperature (MAT) globally. Each gridcell is colored by the percentage of clay and silt minerals, and best-fit trends are depicted for fine- and coarse-textured soils; here, fine-textured soils were classified as those with >70% clay + silt content and coarse-textured soils with <20% clay + silt content.…

Global distribution of soil organic carbon change for eight models present in both Coupled Model Intercomparison Project and CMIP6. Credit: AGU Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2023AV001068 Soil carbon is exactly what it sounds like: carbon collected and stored in soil. Plants pull carbon from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and deposit it into the soil as their leaves, stems, and roots decompose. In fact, soil contains more…

The cycle of drought, drying and cracking soil, and ground carbon release creates an amplified feedback loop that has not been accounted for in most models of climate change. Credit: Farshid Vahedifard The accuracy of climate models depends on many factors—greenhouse gas emissions from industrial and transportation activity, farm animal "emissions," urban growth and loss of forests, and solar reflections off snow and ground…

Subarctic grassland undergoing natural geothermal warming in Iceland. Credit: Christina KaiserNew findings enable more accurate prediction of the carbon cycle.Warmer soils harbor a greater diversity of active microbes, according to a new study from researchers at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna. The study, published in Science Advances, represents a significant shift in our understanding of how microbial activity in the soil influences the global carbon…

Researchers identified key factors that determine if soil traps carbon or releases it as CO2, highlighting the role of molecular interactions and soil chemistry, potentially aiding climate change mitigation efforts. Smectite clay (shown here) holds clay minerals known to sequester carbon in natural soils. Credit: Francesco UngaroRecent research reveals the mechanism by which soil captures atmospheric carbon derived from plants.When carbon molecules from plants make their way into the soil, they hit a definitive fork in…

Earth scientist Stephanie Pennington measures soil respiration at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center near Edgewater, Md. Credit: Ben Bond-Lamberty The ground beneath our feet is exhaling. Steadily and without pause, through a process called soil respiration, plant roots and microbes release carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. The amount of CO2 that passes from the soil to…

Microbe models leverage extensive genomic data to power soil-carbon simulations. Credit: Illustration by Victor O. LeshykScientists are using the DNA from soil microbes to model how they function and use carbon, ultimately helping to advance the accuracy of climate models.Climate models are essential to predicting and addressing climate change, but can fail to adequately represent soil microbes, a critical player in ecosystem soil carbon sequestration that affects the global carbon cycle. A team of scientists led by the…

Subarctic grassland undergoing natural geothermal warming in Iceland. Credit: C: Christina Kaiser Warmer soils harbor a greater diversity of active microbes, according to a new study from researchers at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna. The study, published in Science Advances,…

Average SOC stock Mg ha-1 across soil horizons and volumetric stone content (%) classes for the combined I-SIS, HSP and SQUARE datasets. Credit: Geoderma Regional (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.geodrs.2024.e00769 Researchers from Teagasc have published an article in Geoderma Regional highlighting the consequences of not measuring soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in Irish grassland soils precisely. Quantifying changes in SOC, either…

Research indicates that the quality of tea is not solely dependent on the variety of tea plants but also on the microbes present on their roots. Modifying these microbial communities has been shown to significantly improve tea quality by enhancing amino acid content, suggesting a new avenue for agricultural improvement that could extend beyond tea to other crops.You’d think the complex flavor in a quality cup of tea would depend mainly on the tea varieties used to make it. However, recent research published in the journal…