Priming effects in soils across Europe

Land use is a key factor driving changes in soil carbon (C) cycle and contents worldwide. The priming effect (PE)—CO2 emissions from changed soil organic matter decomposition in response to fresh C inputs—is one of the most unpredictable phenomena associated with C cycling and related nutrient mobilization. Yet, we know very little about the influence of land use on soil PE across contrasting environments. Here, we conducted a continental-scale study to (i) determine the PE induced by 13C-glucose additions to 126 cropland and seminatural (forests and grasslands) soils from 22 European countries; (ii) compare PE magnitude in soils under various crop types (i.e., cereals, nonpermanent industrial crops, and orchards); and (iii) model the environmental factors influencing PE. On average, PEs were negative in seminatural (with values ranging between −60 and 26 µg C g−1 soil after 35 days of incubation; median = −11) and cropland (from −55 to 27 µC g−1 soil; median = −4.3) soils, meaning that microbial communities preferentially switched from soil organic C decomposition to glucose mineralization. PE was significantly less negative in croplands compared with seminatural ecosystems and not influenced by the crop type. PE was driven by soil basal respiration (reflecting microbial activity), microbial biomass C, and soil organic C, which were all higher in seminatural ecosystems compared with croplands. This cross European experimental and modeling study elucidated that PE intensity is dependent on land use and allowed to clarify the factors regulating this important C cycling process. © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Authors
Siles J.A.1 , Díaz-López M.1 , Vera A.1 , Eisenhauer N.2, 3 , Guerra C.A.2, 4 , Smith L.C.2, 4 , Buscot F.2, 4, 5 , Reitz T.2, 5 , Breitkreuz C.5 , Van Den Hoogen J. , Crowther T.W.6 , Orgiazzi A.7 , Kuzyakov Y. 8, 9, 10 , Delgado-Baquerizo M.11 , Bastida F.1
Publisher
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Number of issue
6
Language
English
Pages
2146-2157
Status
Published
Volume
28
Year
2022
Organizations
  • 1 Department of Soil and Water Conservation and Waste Management, CEBAS-CSIC, Murcia, Spain
  • 2 German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
  • 3 Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
  • 4 Institute of Biology, Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany
  • 5 Soil Ecology Department, UFZ—Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Halle (Saale), Germany
  • 6 Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 7 European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
  • 8 Department of Soil Science of Temperate Ecosystems and Department of Agricultural Soil Science, University of Gottingen, Gottingen, Germany
  • 9 Agro-Technological Institute, RUDN University, Moscow, Russian Federation
  • 10 Institute of Environmental Sciences, Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russian Federation
  • 11 Departamento de Sistemas Físicos, Químicos y Naturales, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, Spain
Keywords
agroecosystems; carbon cycling; land management; land use; priming effect; soil organic matter
Date of creation
06.07.2022
Date of change
06.07.2022
Short link
https://repository.rudn.ru/en/records/article/record/83819/
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