Microbial biomass not diversity drives soil carbon and nitrogen mineralization in Spanish holm oak ecosystems

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61388971%3A_____%2F25%3A00637890" target="_blank" >RIV/61388971:_____/25:00637890 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706125002460?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" >https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706125002460?via%3Dihub</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117408" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117408</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Microbial biomass not diversity drives soil carbon and nitrogen mineralization in Spanish holm oak ecosystems

Original language description

Soil microbial communities drive essential ecosystem functions, catalyzing biogeochemical cycles and contributing to climate regulation. However, due to the complexity of microbial communities, the magnitude and direction of microbial biomass and diversity contributions to carbon (C) and nutrient cycling remain unclear. For this reason, most models predicting soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics at the ecosystem level do not explicitly describe the role of microorganisms as mediators of SOM decomposition. Incorporating microbial properties, and especially diversity, into ecosystem models remains an open question, requiring careful consideration of the tradeoff between model complexity and performance. This work addresses this knowledge gap by implementing a simple C and nitrogen (N) cycling model to predict heterotrophic respiration and net N mineralization rates in soils sampled under different land-uses and tree health conditions across Spain. To understand the role of microorganisms on ecosystem functioning, we progressively incorporated microbial biomass and diversity (i.e., alpha diversity of taxa and of fungal functional groups), and selected the model that optimized prediction accuracy, while minimizing complexity. We found that microbial biomass had a strong and positive effect on both C and N mineralization rates, with heterotrophic respiration being nearly linearly controlled by biomass. In contrast, microbial diversity had minimal but negative effects on mineralization processes, with land-use differences explaining part of the variability in these effects. Our study confirms microbial biomass as a key driver of C and N mineralization rates, while highlights that microbial diversity based on taxonomic identification inadequately explains microbial effects on these ecosystem functions.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10606 - Microbiology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Geoderma

ISSN

0016-7061

e-ISSN

1872-6259

Volume of the periodical

460

Issue of the periodical within the volume

August 2025

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

15

Pages from-to

117408

UT code for WoS article

001521516300001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105008910923