{"id":4162,"date":"2023-03-02T09:11:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T09:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/?p=4162"},"modified":"2023-03-02T09:11:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T09:11:47","slug":"new-publication-from-lange-et-al-in-global-change-biology-increased-soil-carbon-storage-through-plant-diversity-strengthens-with-time-and-extends-into-the-subsoil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/2023\/03\/02\/new-publication-from-lange-et-al-in-global-change-biology-increased-soil-carbon-storage-through-plant-diversity-strengthens-with-time-and-extends-into-the-subsoil\/","title":{"rendered":"New publication from Lange et al. in Global Change Biology: Increased soil carbon storage through plant diversity strengthens with time and extends into the subsoil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"justify\">Soils are important for ecosystem functioning and service provisioning.  Soil communities and their functions, in turn, are strongly promoted by  plant diversity, and such positive effects strengthen with time.  However, plant diversity effects on soil organic matter have mostly been  investigated in the topsoil, and there are only very few long-term  studies. Thus, it remains unclear if plant diversity effects strengthen  with time and to which depth these effects extend. Here, we repeatedly  sampled soil to 1\u2009m depth in a long-term grassland biodiversity  experiment. We investigated how plant diversity impacted soil organic  carbon and nitrogen concentrations and stocks and their stable isotopes <sup>13<\/sup>C and <sup>15<\/sup>N,  as well as how these effects changed after 5, 10, and 14\u2009years. We  found that higher plant diversity increased carbon and nitrogen storage  in the topsoil since the establishment of the experiment. Stable  isotopes revealed that these increases were associated with new  plant-derived inputs, resulting in less processed and less decomposed  soil organic matter. In subsoils, mainly the presence of specific plant  functional groups drove organic matter dynamics. For example, the  presence of deep-rooting tall herbs decreased carbon concentrations,  most probably through stimulating soil organic matter decomposition.  Moreover, plant diversity effects on soil organic matter became stronger  in topsoil over time and reached subsoil layers, while the effects of  specific plant functional groups in subsoil progressively diminished  over time. Our results indicate that after changing the soil system the  pathways of organic matter transfer to the subsoil need time to  establish. In our grassland system, organic matter storage in subsoils  was driven by the redistribution of already stored soil organic matter  from the topsoil to deeper soil layers, for example, via bioturbation or  dissolved organic matter. Therefore, managing plant diversity may,  thus, have significant implications for subsoil carbon storage and other  critical ecosystem services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image justify\"><img src=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/cms\/asset\/a1bede24-855b-4cf2-90d7-d9b003a2ad89\/gcb16641-fig-0002-m.png\" alt=\"Details are in the caption following the image\"\/><figcaption>Changes of soil (a)\u00a0organic carbon and (b)\u00a0soil nitrogen concentrations, (d,\u00a0e)\u00a0their\u00a0stocks, their stable isotope ratios\u00a0(f) \u03b4<sup>13<\/sup>C and (g)\u00a0\u03b4<sup>15<\/sup>N  values, as well as the\u00a0(c) carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (C\/N ratio) at  different soil depth compartments (0\u201310\u00a0cm, 10\u201340\u2009cm, 40\u2013100\u2009cm) during  three soil sampling periods. Concentrations of the 5\u00a0cm soil increments  were averaged per soil depth compartments and stocks were summed up per  compartment. Please note that there are no data on \u03b4<sup>15<\/sup>N values available in 2007. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3>Reference:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Lange, M.,  Eisenhauer, N.,  Chen, H., &amp;  Gleixner, G. (2023).  Increased soil carbon storage through plant diversity strengthens with time and extends into the subsoil. <em>Global Change Biology<\/em>,  00,  1\u2013 13. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/gcb.16641\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/gcb.16641<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Soils are important for ecosystem functioning and service provisioning. Soil communities and their functions, in turn, are strongly promoted by plant diversity, and such positive effects strengthen with time. However,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4165,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions\/4165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-jena-experiment.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}