Speaker
Description
Microbial growth, carbon use efficiency (CUE), and functions are central to biomass accumulation and contribute to organic carbon formation through the persistent microbial residues. However, at the macroscale, mechanistic understanding remains limited regarding how microbial community diversity, assembly, functions, and physiological traits interact to influence microbial contributions to SOC persistence. Here, within the Biodiversity Exploratories framework, we present integrated findings on how land use intensity and changes in above- and belowground biodiversity, together with associated environmental setting, affect microbial resource acquisition capacity, physiological traits, and their roles in microbial-derived C in soil organic carbon (SOC) storage in the topsoil (0-10 cm) of grassland and forest soils across three distinct regions in Germany. Our preliminary results reveal a decoupling between CUE and necromass persistence, and show distinct mechanisms underlying the general concepts of necromass contributions to SOC storage. In temperate forests, we found positive loops of microbial diversity on specific growth, CUE, and necromass-derived C in SOC, particularly for bacteria. In contrast, intensively managed grasslands exhibited higher microbial biomass, growth rate, and CUE, potentially leading to more efficient necromass recycling, which in turn results in lower microbial-derived carbon in SOC. We would like to discuss how different microbial communities within a range of physiological states, may exert profoundly different effects on soil carbon cycling, potentially mediated by community compositions and activities. Overall, we aim to disentangle the roles of environmental setting and different microbial communities as drivers of key microbial traits and functions that influence the persistence of microbial-derived SOC, which is shaped by land use intensity and biodiversity loss.
| Status Group | Postdoctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| Poster Presentation Option | Yes, I’m willing to present as a poster. |
