Necromass carbon but not microbes constrain soil carbon release in restoration of degraded alpine grassland

Alpine grassland restoration, a critical strategy for enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in high-altitude ecosystems, profoundly influences plant‒soil‒microbe interactions that govern the magnitude of carbon (C)-climate feedback. However, mechanisms driving plant and microbial regulation of SOC mineralization (i.e., soil CO2-C release) during degraded alpine grassland restoration remain unresolved, limiting predictions of SOC cycling in these vulnerable ecosystems. Here, by integrating passive and active restoration experiments with aerobic incubation, high-throughput sequencing, and biomarker analyses, we disentangled how restoration-induced shifts in SOC composition (plant- and microbial-derived C) and microbial activity and diversity regulate soil CO2-C release in degraded alpine grassland on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Our results showed that soil CO2-C release increased significantly with restoration progression under both passive and active approaches. Alpine grass..., , # Data from: Necromass carbon but not microbes constrain soil carbon release in restoration of degraded alpine grassland

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.j9kd51ct1](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j9kd51ct1)

## Description of the data and file structure

The data collected in this study aims to investigate the limiting factors of soil carbon release during the restoration of degraded alpine grasslands, with a particular focus on the relative roles of plant-derived carbon and microbial-derived carbon (necromass carbon). The experiment encompasses grassland sites with varying degrees of degradation (from non-degraded to heavily degraded) and restoration approaches (active and passive restoration). Multiple sets of indicators were measured, including soil physicochemical properties, plant- and microbial-derived carbon compounds, microbial community biomass and diversity, and soil carbon mineralization rates, in order to decipher the key biogeochemical factors driving soil carbon dynamics along...,