Separating the decomposition rates and temperature sensitivities of soil mineral-associated and particulate organic carbon using a data-model fusion approach

Abstract

Although soil organic carbon (SOC) is a continuum of progressively decomposed compounds with diverse molecular structures, classifying SOC into particulate organic carbon (POC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) has been suggested to improve our understanding of SOC vulnerability to environmental changes. Incubation experiments have been extensively employed as a powerful approach to the investigation of SOC decomposition, as this method can isolate specific effects from covariations in the field. Here, we proposed a method to separate the decomposition rates and temperature sensitivities (Q₁₀) of POC and MAOC from bulk soil incubation data using the Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique. The data used to validate our method was collected from a ~2600 m altitudinal transect in the Eastern Himalayas. We found that reactive iron plus aluminum oxides had a significant negative effect on the decomposition rate of MAOC but had no effect on the decomposition rate of POC. The negative effect of reactive iron plus aluminum oxides on Q₁₀ for POC was stronger than that on Q₁₀ for MAOC. In addition, the relative values of Q₁₀ for POC and MAOC depended upon elevation, challenging the assumed higher Q₁₀ for POC than that for MAOC from the carbon quality temperature hypothesis. Overall, the proposed approach will improve our mechanistical understanding of soil MAOC and POC dynamics in response to environmental changes.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

mineral protection / mineral-associated organic carbon / particulate organic carbon / data assimilation / decomposition / temperature sensitivity

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