Microbial resource-use strategies mediate soil carbon turnover across forest succession

Abstract

Forest development is known to increase soil organic carbon (C) storage, yet the understanding of the stability of this accumulated C remains elusive. To address this gap, the study examined how soil C turnover-a key indicator of stability-changes with forest development, by combining a global meta-analysis with two long-term forest chronosequences spanning subtropical and temperate regions. Global data analysis revealed that soil C stability increased with forests development, showing decreasing soil C turnover rates that were primarily driven by increasing fungi: bacteria ratio. Across two long-term forest chronosequences at Changbai Mountain and Dinghu Mountain, soil C turnover declined with forest succession and was positively associated with fungal K/r-strategies, whereas bacterial community attributes exhibited weak relationships. Notably, conventional indicators of physical C protection, such as the mineral-associated to particulate organic C ratio, along with microbial indicators (microbial biomass, extracellular enzyme activities, and respiration rates), explained only a limited proportion of the variation in soil C turnover. These findings highlight that microbial resource-use strategies are more critical predictors of forest soil C stability than traditional physical or microbial indicators.

Keywords

Carbon cycling / Ecological strategy / Microbial community / Fungi: bacteria interactions / Soil organic matter

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