Organic Carbon Sorption and Decomposition in Selected Global Soils

This data set reports the results of lab-scale experiments conducted to investigate the dynamics of
organic carbon (C) decomposition from several soils from temperate, tropical, arctic, and sub-arctic
environments. Results were used to test the newly developed soil microbe decomposition C
model--Microbial-ENzyme-medicated Decomposition (MEND). We conducted a series of laboratory-scale
experiments to better understand the microbial processing of organic C in response to diverse substrates
and soil types, and to provide data to create an improved mechanistic model of cycling of organic C in
soils. The interaction of diverse substrate types on a global suite of soils was determined in batch
sorption experiments and the microbial decomposition of these compounds was determined by long-term
incubation experiments. We used radiocarbon labeling approach in order to study the turnover of added
substrate C through different C pools and to separately quantify the respiration of substrate C and
native soil organic carbon. There are 25 *.csv data files included in this data set, User's Guide with a
Data Dictionary, and two of the resulting published articles.