The influence of soil communities on the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration

Soil respiration represents a major carbon flux between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, and is expected to accelerate under climate warming. Despite its importance in climate change forecasts, however, our understanding of the effects of temperature on soil respiration (RS) is incomplete. Using a metabolic ecology approach we link soil biota metabolism, community composition and heterotrophic activity, to predict RS rates across five biomes. We find that accounting for the ecological mechanisms underpinning decomposition processes predicts climatological RS variations observed in an independent dataset (n = 312). The importance of community composition is evident because without it RS is substantially underestimated. With increasing temperature, we predict a latitudinal increase in RS temperature sensitivity, with Q10 values ranging between 2.33 ±0.01 in tropical forests to 2.72 ±0.03 in tundra. This global trend has been widely observed, but has not previously been linked to...

土壤呼吸是陆地生态系统与大气之间的核心碳通量之一，预计在气候变暖背景下其速率将显著加快。尽管其在气候变化预测中具有关键意义，但我们对温度影响土壤呼吸（Soil Respiration, RS）的认知仍存在不足。本研究采用代谢生态学方法，将土壤生物群落代谢、群落组成与异养活性相结合，以预测五大生物群区的RS速率。研究发现，纳入支撑土壤分解过程的生态机制后，模型可准确复现独立数据集（n=312）中观测到的气候相关RS变化。群落组成的重要性尤为突出：若未纳入该因素，RS将被显著低估。随着温度升高，我们预测RS的温度敏感性随纬度升高而递增，Q10值范围为热带森林的2.33±0.01至苔原的2.72±0.03。这一全球趋势已被广泛观测到，但此前尚未与……建立关联。