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Yi B, Lu C, Huang W, Yu W, Yang J, Howe A, Weintraub-Leff SR, Hall SJ. Resolving the influence of lignin on soil organic matter decomposition with mechanistic models and continental-scale data. Glob Chang Biol 2023; 29:5968-5980. [PMID: 37448171 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16875] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2023] [Accepted: 06/05/2023] [Indexed: 07/15/2023]
Abstract
Confidence in model estimates of soil CO2 flux depends on assumptions regarding fundamental mechanisms that control the decomposition of litter and soil organic carbon (SOC). Multiple hypotheses have been proposed to explain the role of lignin, an abundant and complex biopolymer that may limit decomposition. We tested competing mechanisms using data-model fusion with modified versions of the CN-SIM model and a 571-day laboratory incubation dataset where decomposition of litter, lignin, and SOC was measured across 80 soil samples from the National Ecological Observatory Network. We found that lignin decomposition consistently decreased over time in 65 samples, whereas in the other 15 samples, lignin decomposition subsequently increased. These "lagged-peak" samples can be predicted by low soil pH, high extractable Mn, and fungal community composition as measured by ITS PC2 (the second principal component of an ordination of fungal ITS amplicon sequences). The highest-performing model incorporated soil biogeochemical factors and daily dynamics of substrate availability (labile bulk litter:lignin) that jointly represented two hypotheses (C substrate limitation and co-metabolism) previously thought to influence lignin decomposition. In contrast, models representing either hypothesis alone were biased and underestimated cumulative decomposition. Our findings reconcile competing hypotheses of lignin decomposition and suggest the need to precisely represent the role of lignin and consider soil metal and fungal characteristics to accurately estimate decomposition in Earth-system models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bo Yi
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
| | - Chaoqun Lu
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
| | - Wenjuan Huang
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
| | - Wenjuan Yu
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
| | - Jihoon Yang
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
| | - Adina Howe
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
| | | | - Steven J Hall
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
- Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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Liang J, Xia J, Shi Z, Jiang L, Ma S, Lu X, Mauritz M, Natali SM, Pegoraro E, Penton CR, Plaza C, Salmon VG, Celis G, Cole JR, Konstantinidis KT, Tiedje JM, Zhou J, Schuur EAG, Luo Y. Biotic responses buffer warming-induced soil organic carbon loss in Arctic tundra. Glob Chang Biol 2018; 24:4946-4959. [PMID: 29802797 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2017] [Accepted: 05/10/2018] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Climate warming can result in both abiotic (e.g., permafrost thaw) and biotic (e.g., microbial functional genes) changes in Arctic tundra. Recent research has incorporated dynamic permafrost thaw in Earth system models (ESMs) and indicates that Arctic tundra could be a significant future carbon (C) source due to the enhanced decomposition of thawed deep soil C. However, warming-induced biotic changes may influence biologically related parameters and the consequent projections in ESMs. How model parameters associated with biotic responses will change under warming and to what extent these changes affect projected C budgets have not been carefully examined. In this study, we synthesized six data sets over 5 years from a soil warming experiment at the Eight Mile Lake, Alaska, into the Terrestrial ECOsystem (TECO) model with a probabilistic inversion approach. The TECO model used multiple soil layers to track dynamics of thawed soil under different treatments. Our results show that warming increased light use efficiency of vegetation photosynthesis but decreased baseline (i.e., environment-corrected) turnover rates of SOC in both the fast and slow pools in comparison with those under control. Moreover, the parameter changes generally amplified over time, suggesting processes of gradual physiological acclimation and functional gene shifts of both plants and microbes. The TECO model predicted that field warming from 2009 to 2013 resulted in cumulative C losses of 224 or 87 g/m2 , respectively, without or with changes in those parameters. Thus, warming-induced parameter changes reduced predicted soil C loss by 61%. Our study suggests that it is critical to incorporate biotic changes in ESMs to improve the model performance in predicting C dynamics in permafrost regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junyi Liang
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
- Environmental Sciences Division and Climate Change Science Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
| | - Jiangyang Xia
- Tiantong National Station of Forest Ecosystem, Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Eco-Chongming (IEC), Shanghai, China
| | - Zheng Shi
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
| | - Lifen Jiang
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | - Shuang Ma
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | - Xingjie Lu
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | - Marguerite Mauritz
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | | | - Elaine Pegoraro
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | - Christopher Ryan Penton
- College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University, Mesa, Arizona
- Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
| | - César Plaza
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
- Departamento de Biología y Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Escuela Superior de Ciencias Experimentales y Tecnología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles, Spain
- Instituto de Ciencias Agrarias, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain
| | - Verity G Salmon
- Environmental Sciences Division and Climate Change Science Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
| | - Gerardo Celis
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | - James R Cole
- Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Center for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
| | - Konstantinos T Konstantinidis
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - James M Tiedje
- Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Center for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
| | - Jizhong Zhou
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
- Institute for Environmental Genomics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
- State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
| | - Edward A G Schuur
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | - Yiqi Luo
- Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
- Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
- Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
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Guanter L, Zhang Y, Jung M, Joiner J, Voigt M, Berry JA, Frankenberg C, Huete AR, Zarco-Tejada P, Lee JE, Moran MS, Ponce-Campos G, Beer C, Camps-Valls G, Buchmann N, Gianelle D, Klumpp K, Cescatti A, Baker JM, Griffis TJ. Global and time-resolved monitoring of crop photosynthesis with chlorophyll fluorescence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2014; 111:E1327-33. [PMID: 24706867 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1320008111] [Citation(s) in RCA: 244] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants harvest sunlight to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water. It is the primary source of energy for all life on Earth; hence it is important to understand how this process responds to climate change and human impact. However, model-based estimates of gross primary production (GPP, output from photosynthesis) are highly uncertain, in particular over heavily managed agricultural areas. Recent advances in spectroscopy enable the space-based monitoring of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) from terrestrial plants. Here we demonstrate that spaceborne SIF retrievals provide a direct measure of the GPP of cropland and grassland ecosystems. Such a strong link with crop photosynthesis is not evident for traditional remotely sensed vegetation indices, nor for more complex carbon cycle models. We use SIF observations to provide a global perspective on agricultural productivity. Our SIF-based crop GPP estimates are 50-75% higher than results from state-of-the-art carbon cycle models over, for example, the US Corn Belt and the Indo-Gangetic Plain, implying that current models severely underestimate the role of management. Our results indicate that SIF data can help us improve our global models for more accurate projections of agricultural productivity and climate impact on crop yields. Extension of our approach to other ecosystems, along with increased observational capabilities for SIF in the near future, holds the prospect of reducing uncertainties in the modeling of the current and future carbon cycle.
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