Field experiments show no consistent reductions in soil microbial carbon in response to warming
Chao Yue, Jinshi Jian, Philippe Ciais, Xiaohua Ren, Juying Jiao, Shaoshan An, Yu Li, Jie Wu, Pengyi Zhang, Ben Bond‐Lamberty
Abstract
Soil microbes play an essential role in maintaining soil functions and services, but the dynamics of soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) under global climate change remain unclear 1 . Recently, Patoine et al. 2 combined a global MBC data set with Random Forest modeling and reported that global MBC decreased over 1992–2013, mainly driven by increasing temperatures. Contrarily, using MBC field observations from soil warming manipulation experiments and in-situ long-term measurements across the globe, we found that MBC showed no significant changes under soil warming. Our findings indicate that soil MBC is unlikely to have decreased significantly due to the global warming of 0.28 °C during 1992–2013, and that further mechanistic studies are needed to understand potential changes in MBC under climate change.