Nine years of warming and nitrogen addition in the Tibetan grassland promoted loss of soil organic carbon but did not alter the bulk change of chemical structure

Understanding the changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) storage and chemical stabilization dynamics is important for accurately predicting ecosystem C sequestration and/or potential C loss, but the relevant information, especially for the intervention of environmental controls on grassland soil is limited in Tibetan plateau regions. Here we used a 9-year two-way factorial experiment involving warming with open top chambers (+1.80 °C in the daytime and +0.77 °C in the nighttime at the soil surface) and multilevel nitrogen (N) enrichment treatments (0, 5, 10, and 15 g m-2 year-1) in the Tibetan plateau to investigate the changes in SOC pool size and chemical structure. 9-year warming treatment significantly decreased SOC stock in the Tibetan grassland. We observed decreasing SOC concentrations which may be related to changes in the C degrading enzymes. Surprisingly, the SOC molecular structure remained unchanged in all N enrichment and warmed plots, suggesting that both treatments had affected all forms of SOC, from simple and complex polymeric in a similar way. Our results suggest that long-term warming stimulates soil C loss but no preference in SOC loss with different chemical structure.