Microbial control over carbon cycling in soil

By J. Schimel, Sean Schaeffer. Front. Microbio., 2012

1,362 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A major thrust of terrestrial microbial ecology is focused on understanding when and how the composition of the microbial community affects the functioning of biogeochemical processes at the ecosystem scale (meters-to-kilometers and days-to-years). While research has demonstrated these linkages for physiologically and phylogenetically “narrow” processes such as trace gas emissions and nitrification, there is less conclusive evidence that microbial community composition influences the “broad” processes of decomposition and organic matter (OM) turnover in soil. In this paper, we consider how soil microbial community structure influences C cycling. We consider the phylogenetic level at which microbes form meaningful guilds, based on overall life history strategies, and suggest that these are associated with deep evolutionary divergences, while much of the species-level diversity probably reflects functional redundancy. We then consider under what conditions it is possible for differences among microbes to affect process dynamics, and argue that while microbial community structure may be important in the rate of OM breakdown in the rhizosphere and in detritus, it is likely not important in the mineral soil. In mineral soil, physical access to occluded or sorbed substrates is the rate-limiting process. Microbial community influences on OM turnover in mineral soils are based on how organisms allocate the C they take up – not only do the fates of the molecules differ, but they can affect the soil system differently as well. For example, extracellular enzymes and extracellular polysaccharides can be key controls on soil structure and function. How microbes allocate C may also be particularly important for understanding the long-term fate of C in soil – is it sequestered or not?

Subfields: Ecology, Molecular Biology, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d590cea685a251239c26fd93e06814641259a205

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Citations in the corpus

Relative importance of soil properties and microbial community for soil functionality: insights from a microbial swap experiment (2016, background): “…critical roles in decompo- sition, nutrient cycling, primary productivity and climate regulation (van der Heijden, Bardgett & van Straalen 2008; Strickland et al. 2009; Bodelier 2011; Schimel & Schaeffer 2012; Bardgett & van der Putten 2014; Nemergut et al. 2013; Nemergut, Shade & Violle 2014).”
Microbial carbon use efficiency promotes global soil carbon storage (2023, background): “Although many modelling 7,14,32,36 and empirical studies 31,37–39 have suggested that a high CUE stimulates microbial 1 and 2 for details). exoenzyme activities and possibly triggers respiratory carbon loss (Fig.”
Beyond microbes: Are fauna the next frontier in soil biogeochemical models? (2016, background): “As a starting point to incorporating fauna into predictive models, explicit representation of food webs must modify the rate of biogeochemical turnover, or the fate of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in soils (Schimel and Schaeffer, 2012) to justify their complexity.”
Hydration and diffusion processes shape microbial community organization and function in model soil aggregates (2015, background): “Soil hydration dynamics and commensurate changes in gaseous and nutrient diffusion capacities are known to influence the composition and function of soil microbial communities [Chenu et al., 2001; Treves et al., 2003; Mummey et al., 2006; Schimel and Schaeffer, 2012, Wang and Or, 2013].”
Quantitative assessment of microbial necromass contribution to soil organic matter (2019, background): “…is determined by the balance between microbial metabolic activities and carbon input by plant (Janzen, 2015), the mechanis‐ tic basis for understanding carbon dynamics in soil relies on under‐ standing of microorganism‐mediated processes (Liang, Schimel, & Jastrow, 2017; Schimel & Schaeffer, 2012).”
Microbial interactions affect sources of priming induced by cellulose (2014, background): “It has also been hypothesized that the input of plant residues stimulates production of microbial enzymes that decompose recalcitrant SOM (Schimel and Weintraub, 2003; Allison et al., 2010; Schimel and Schaeffer, 2012).”