Variability of ecosystem carbon source from microbial respiration is controlled by rainfall dynamics
Heng Huang, Salvatore Calabrese, I. Rodriguez‐Iturbe
Abstract
Significance The variability of the different ecosystem carbon fluxes directly influences the global carbon budget and future climate trajectory. Heterotrophic respiration is particularly uncertain and the extent to which its dynamics are driven by climate, soil, and vegetation properties remains poorly understood. Here we combine a global carbon flux dataset with a probabilistic model of microbial growth to show that despite its complexity the ecosystem-scale heterotrophic respiration can be described as a function of rainfall characteristics and vegetation primary productivity, regardless of ecosystem type. This emergent simplicity in ecosystem-scale heterotrophic respiration may help close the ecosystem carbon budgets and provide a quantitative framework to forecast the possible impacts of climate change on the soil carbon balance.