Soil is a huge terrestrial carbon pool, which has higher carbon storage than the sum of atmospheric and terrestrial vegetation carbon Small fluctuations in soil carbon pool can affect regional carbon flux and global climate change As soil organic carbon plays key roles in soil carbon storage and sequestration, studying its composition, sources and stability mechanism is a key to deeply understand the functions of terrestrial ecosystem and how it will respond to climate changes The recently-proposed concept of soil Microbial Carbon Pump (MCP) emphasizes the importance of soil microbial anabolism and its contributions to soil carbon formation and stabilization, which can be applied for elucidating the source, formation and sequestration of soil organic carbon This article elaborates MCP-mediated soil carbon sequestration mechanism and its influencing factors, as well as representative scientific questions we may explore with the soil MCP conceptual framework

The soil Microbial Carbon Pump as a new concept for terrestrial carbon sequestration

Climate change and land-use disturbances are supposed to have severely affected the degraded alpine grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau. Artificial grassland establishment has been implemented as a restoration tool against grassland degradation. However, the impact of such degradation and restoration processes on soil microbial communities and soil quality is not clearly understood. Here, we aim to investigate how the dynamics of microbial community and soil quality of alpine grasslands respond to a gradient of degradation and that of restoration, respectively. We conducted a randomised experiment with four degradation stages (light, moderate, heavy, and extreme degradation) and three restoration stages (artificial restoration for 1, 5, and 10 years). We analysed the abundance and diversity of soil bacteria and fungi, and measured soil nutrients, enzymatic activity and microbial biomass. The concentration of soil nitrogen (TN), soil organic matter (OM) in heavy degraded grassland decreased significantly by 37.4 and 45.08% compared with that in light degraded grassland. TN and OM in 10-years restored grassland also increased significantly by 33.10 and 30.42% compared to that in 1-year restored grassland. Four soil enzymatic activity indicators related to microbial biomass decreased with degradation gradient and increased with recovery time (i.e., restoration gradient). Both bacterial and fungal community structure was significantly different among grassland degradation or restoration successional stages. The LEfSe analysis revealed that 29 fungal clades and 9 bacterial clades were susceptible to degraded succession, while16 fungal clades and 5 bacterial clades were susceptible to restoration succession. We conclude that soil quality (TN, OM, and enzymatic activity) deteriorated significantly in heavy degraded alpine grassland. Soil microbial community structure of alpine is profoundly impacted by both degradation and restoration processes, fungal communities are more sensitive to grassland succession than bacterial communities. Artificial grasslands can be used as an effective method of restoring degraded grassland, but the soil functions of artificial grassland, even after 10 years of recovery, cannot be restored to the original state of alpine grassland.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.770315/pdf

Responses of Soil Microbial Metabolic Activity and Community Structure to Different Degraded and Restored Grassland Gradients of the Tibetan Plateau

Forest succession can alter terrestrial ecosystem processes and potentially impact subsurface carbon dynamics. However, the effects of long‐term forest succession on soil microbial metabolic activity remain unclear. This study investigated a long‐term forest succession approximately ~160 years after farmland abandonment on the central Loess Plateau, China, to explore the changes in soil microbial metabolism following the forest succession. Among them, the soil basal respiration (BR), microbial quotient (qMB), and metabolic quotient (qCO2) were studied. The results showed that the BR and qCO2 were increased following forest succession, whereas the qMB showed the opposite trend. Forest succession also increased the activities of β‐1,4‐glucosidase (BG) and β‐D‐cellobiosidase (CBH). The increase of BR and qCO2 and the decrease of qMB occurred in the early stage (<60 years). However, the increase of BG and CBH mainly occurred in the later period (>100 years). Soil microbial metabolic activity was closely related to litter biomass, dissolved organic carbon, fungal, and bacterial community composition. In conclusion, long‐term forest succession changes soil microbial community structure and promotes soil organic carbon accumulation, while the increase of soil respiration and metabolism promotes the release of carbon element following forest succession, thus reducing soil microbial carbon utilization efficiency.

Changes in soil microbial metabolic activity following long‐term forest succession on the central Loess Plateau, China

Variability of soil enzyme activities and nutrients with forest gap renewal interacting with soil depths in degraded karst forests

Northeast black soil region in China is one of the four global black soil regions, and accounts for approximately 12% of the total black soil regions in the world. The unique climate conditions in Northeast China produce fertile black soil. In the warm growing season, there is abundant heat, enough soil moisture, and lush vegetation. A large quantity of organic residues are returned to the soil before winter. Over the long winters, the large amount of plant residues are decomposed slowly and then transformed into humus that accumulates in the upper layer of the soil. After thousands of years, a thick humus layer formed (60–80 cm in depth). The objectives of this chapter are to review some of the literature on factors affecting fertility of Mollisols in Northeast China, to interpret this literature in the context of climate change, and to highlight management strategies to adapt to climate change. 

Climate change impacts on soil fertility in Chinese Mollisols

Microorganisms and soil enzymes are important drivers for biogeochemical cycles in terrestrial ecosystems. Understanding the role of microorganisms in the regulation of ecosystems and the response mechanisms of microbial biomass and soil enzymes to climate change are important topic in ecology. From the perspective of climatic factors, this review introduced the roles of microorganisms and soil enzymes in the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles of terrestrial ecosystems based on the theory of ecological stoichiometry. Moreover, we synthesized the responses mechanisms of soil microbial and soil enzyme stoichiometry, i.e., changes of microbial metabolic rate, enzymatic acti-vity, microbial community structure, ecological stoichiometry of soil microbial biomass and soil enzymes, and nutrient use efficiency. Finally, we analyzed the current research inadequacies and proposed the scientific problems in this field, i.e., to comprehensively elucidate the response mecha-nism of soil microbes and soil enzymes to climate change; to examine the nutrient coupling mechanism of soil microbes and extracellular enzymes; and to explore the adaptive strategies of C:N:P stoichiometry of soil microbial biomass and soil enzymes to climate change.

[Responses mechanism of C:N:P stoichiometry of soil microbial biomass and soil enzymes to climate change.]

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[Responses mechanism of C:N:P stoichiometry of soil microbial biomass and soil enzymes to climate change.]