TY - JOUR

T1 - Abiotic and biotic drivers of tree trait effects on soil microbial biomass and soil carbon concentration

AU - Beugnon, Rémy

AU - Bu, Wensheng

AU - Bruelheide, Helge

AU - Davrinche, Andréa

AU - Du, Jianqing

AU - Haider, Sylvia

AU - Kunz, Matthias

AU - von Oheimb, Goddert

AU - Perles-Garcia, Maria D.

AU - Saadani, Mariem

AU - Scholten, Thomas

AU - Seitz, Steffen

AU - Singavarapu, Bala

AU - Trogisch, Stefan

AU - Wang, Yanfen

AU - Wubet, Tesfaye

AU - Xue, Kai

AU - Yang, Bo

AU - Cesarz, Simone

AU - Eisenhauer, Nico

N1 - Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation – 319936945/GRK2324) and the University of Chinese Academy Sciences (UCAS). We acknowledge the support of the TreeDì research group, especially many local helpers involved in collecting the samples. We also thank the laboratory members of the Experimental Interaction Ecology group for their support, especially Alfred Lochner, Anja Zeuner, Alla Kavtea, and Linnea Smith for their help during the laboratory measurements. The Experimental Interaction Ecology group is supported by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). We gratefully acknowledge the support of iDiv funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG‐FZT 118, 202548816). Nico Eisenhauer acknowledges funding by the DFG (Ei 862/29‐1). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Ecological Monographs published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Ecological Monographs published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.

PY - 2023/5/1

Y1 - 2023/5/1

N2 - Forests are ecosystems critical to understanding the global carbon budget, due to their carbon sequestration potential in both aboveground and belowground compartments, especially in species-rich forests. Soil carbon sequestration is strongly linked to soil microbial communities, and this link is mediated by the tree community, likely due to modifications of microenvironmental conditions (i.e., biotic conditions, soil properties, and microclimate). We studied soil carbon concentration and the soil microbial biomass of 180 local neighborhoods along a gradient of tree species richness ranging from 1 to 16 tree species per plot in a Chinese subtropical forest experiment (BEF-China). Tree productivity and different tree functional traits were measured at the neighborhood level. We tested the effects of tree productivity, functional trait identity, and dissimilarity on soil carbon concentrations, and their mediation by the soil microbial biomass and microenvironmental conditions. Our analyses showed a strong positive correlation between soil microbial biomass and soil carbon concentrations. In addition, soil carbon concentration increased with tree productivity and tree root diameter, while it decreased with litterfall C:N content. Moreover, tree productivity and tree functional traits (e.g., fungal root association and litterfall C:N ratio) modulated microenvironmental conditions with substantial consequences for soil microbial biomass. We also showed that soil history and topography should be considered in future experiments and tree plantations, as soil carbon concentrations were higher at sites where historical (i.e., at the beginning of the experiment) carbon concentrations were high, themselves being strongly affected by the topography. Altogether, these results implied that the quantification of the different soil carbon pools is critical for understanding microbial community–soil carbon stock relationships and their dependence on tree diversity and microenvironmental conditions.

AB - Forests are ecosystems critical to understanding the global carbon budget, due to their carbon sequestration potential in both aboveground and belowground compartments, especially in species-rich forests. Soil carbon sequestration is strongly linked to soil microbial communities, and this link is mediated by the tree community, likely due to modifications of microenvironmental conditions (i.e., biotic conditions, soil properties, and microclimate). We studied soil carbon concentration and the soil microbial biomass of 180 local neighborhoods along a gradient of tree species richness ranging from 1 to 16 tree species per plot in a Chinese subtropical forest experiment (BEF-China). Tree productivity and different tree functional traits were measured at the neighborhood level. We tested the effects of tree productivity, functional trait identity, and dissimilarity on soil carbon concentrations, and their mediation by the soil microbial biomass and microenvironmental conditions. Our analyses showed a strong positive correlation between soil microbial biomass and soil carbon concentrations. In addition, soil carbon concentration increased with tree productivity and tree root diameter, while it decreased with litterfall C:N content. Moreover, tree productivity and tree functional traits (e.g., fungal root association and litterfall C:N ratio) modulated microenvironmental conditions with substantial consequences for soil microbial biomass. We also showed that soil history and topography should be considered in future experiments and tree plantations, as soil carbon concentrations were higher at sites where historical (i.e., at the beginning of the experiment) carbon concentrations were high, themselves being strongly affected by the topography. Altogether, these results implied that the quantification of the different soil carbon pools is critical for understanding microbial community–soil carbon stock relationships and their dependence on tree diversity and microenvironmental conditions.

KW - Biology

KW - BEF-china

KW - biotic conditions

KW - microbial community

KW - microclimate

KW - microenvironment

KW - productivity

KW - root morphology

KW - soil carbon stock

KW - soil quality

KW - subtropical forest

KW - tree diversity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146767977&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/1f58472e-aff6-319b-9a8d-21e411de617c/

U2 - 10.1002/ecm.1563

DO - 10.1002/ecm.1563

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85146767977

VL - 93

JO - Ecological Monographs

JF - Ecological Monographs

SN - 0012-9615

IS - 2

M1 - e1563

ER -