Soil warming and carbon-cycle feedbacks to the climate system - PubMed

Affiliations

• PMID: 12481133
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1074153

Soil warming and carbon-cycle feedbacks to the climate system

J M Melillo et al. Science. 2002.

Abstract

In a decade-long soil warming experiment in a mid-latitude hardwood forest, we documented changes in soil carbon and nitrogen cycling in order to investigate the consequences of these changes for the climate system. Here we show that whereas soil warming accelerates soil organic matter decay and carbon dioxide fluxes to the atmosphere, this response is small and short-lived for a mid-latitude forest, because of the limited size of the labile soil carbon pool. We also show that warming increases the availability of mineral nitrogen to plants. Because plant growth in many mid-latitude forests is nitrogen-limited, warming has the potential to indirectly stimulate enough carbon storage in plants to at least compensate for the carbon losses from soils. Our results challenge assumptions made in some climate models that lead to projections of large long-term releases of soil carbon in response to warming of forest ecosystems.

Similar articles

• Ecosystem carbon storage in arctic tundra reduced by long-term nutrient fertilization.

  Mack MC, Schuur EA, Bret-Harte MS, Shaver GR, Chapin FS. Mack MC, et al. Nature. 2004 Sep 23;431(7007):440-3. doi: 10.1038/nature02887. Nature. 2004. PMID: 15386009

• Long-term changes in forest carbon under temperature and nitrogen amendments in a temperate northern hardwood forest.

  Savage KE, Parton WJ, Davidson EA, Trumbore SE, Frey SD. Savage KE, et al. Glob Chang Biol. 2013 Aug;19(8):2389-400. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12224. Epub 2013 May 17. Glob Chang Biol. 2013. PMID: 23589498

• Variable effects of nitrogen additions on the stability and turnover of soil carbon.

  Neff JC, Townsend AR, Gleixner G, Lehman SJ, Turnbull J, Bowman WD. Neff JC, et al. Nature. 2002 Oct 31;419(6910):915-7. doi: 10.1038/nature01136. Nature. 2002. PMID: 12410307

• Nitrogen balance in forest soils: nutritional limitation of plants under climate change stresses.

  Rennenberg H, Dannenmann M, Gessler A, Kreuzwieser J, Simon J, Papen H. Rennenberg H, et al. Plant Biol (Stuttg). 2009 Nov;11 Suppl 1:4-23. doi: 10.1111/j.1438-8677.2009.00241.x. Plant Biol (Stuttg). 2009. PMID: 19778364 Review.

• Microbial contributions to climate change through carbon cycle feedbacks.

  Bardgett RD, Freeman C, Ostle NJ. Bardgett RD, et al. ISME J. 2008 Aug;2(8):805-14. doi: 10.1038/ismej.2008.58. Epub 2008 Jul 10. ISME J. 2008. PMID: 18615117 Review.

Cited by

• Disentangling effects of air and soil temperature on C allocation in cold environments: A ¹⁴C pulse-labelling study with two plant species.

  Ferrari A, Hagedorn F, Niklaus PA. Ferrari A, et al. Ecol Evol. 2018 Jul 13;8(16):7778-7789. doi: 10.1002/ece3.4215. eCollection 2018 Aug. Ecol Evol. 2018. PMID: 30250662 Free PMC article.

• Microbial growth under drought is confined to distinct taxa and modified by potential future climate conditions.

  Metze D, Schnecker J, Canarini A, Fuchslueger L, Koch BJ, Stone BW, Hungate BA, Hausmann B, Schmidt H, Schaumberger A, Bahn M, Kaiser C, Richter A. Metze D, et al. Nat Commun. 2023 Sep 22;14(1):5895. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41524-y. Nat Commun. 2023. PMID: 37736743 Free PMC article.

• Effects of short-term warming and nitrogen addition on the quantity and quality of dissolved organic matter in a subtropical Cunninghamia lanceolata plantation.

  Yuan X, Si Y, Lin W, Yang J, Wang Z, Zhang Q, Qian W, Chen Y, Yang Y. Yuan X, et al. PLoS One. 2018 Jan 23;13(1):e0191403. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191403. eCollection 2018. PLoS One. 2018. PMID: 29360853 Free PMC article.

• Climate Warming and Soil Carbon in Tropical Forests: Insights from an Elevation Gradient in the Peruvian Andes.

  Nottingham AT, Whitaker J, Turner BL, Salinas N, Zimmermann M, Malhi Y, Meir P. Nottingham AT, et al. Bioscience. 2015 Sep 1;65(9):906-921. doi: 10.1093/biosci/biv109. Epub 2015 Aug 31. Bioscience. 2015. PMID: 26955086 Free PMC article.

• Nonlinear temperature sensitivity of enzyme kinetics explains canceling effect-a case study on loamy haplic Luvisol.

  Razavi BS, Blagodatskaya E, Kuzyakov Y. Razavi BS, et al. Front Microbiol. 2015 Oct 14;6:1126. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2015.01126. eCollection 2015. Front Microbiol. 2015. PMID: 26528272 Free PMC article.

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources

• Full Text Sources

  • Atypon
  • Ovid Technologies, Inc.