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Nitrogen addition-driven soil organic carbon stability depends on the fractions of particulate and mineral-associated organic carbon

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Abstract

Nitrogen (N) deposition greatly affects soil carbon (C) fractions, triggering changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) persistence and functionality. However, the responses of soil C fractions to N deposition remain unclear on a global scale. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of 69 publications and explored the response of C fractions (particulate organic carbon, POC; mineral-associated organic carbon, MOC) to N addition. Our findings reveal that N addition significantly increases the particulate organic carbon (POC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MOC) pools (32.3% and 8.8%, respectively). Nevertheless, we observed a notable increase in the fraction of POC (fPOC) and a decrease in the fraction of MOC (fMOC) (15.9% and -6.3%, respectively), indicating that N addition augments the SOC pool but decreases SOC stability worldwide. Moreover, the response ratios of POC and MOC were positively correlated with the duration of N addition. In terms of SOC increase, POC was the most important predictor under short-term N addition, whereas MOC significantly contributed to SOC accumulation after long-term N addition. Overall, our study provides solid evidence that N addition reduces SOC stability primarily through changes in POC and proposes a novel approach to predict the soil C-climate feedback for Earth System Models.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFD2300500, 2023YFF1305103), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42377345), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2021T140565), and the Shaanxi Provincial Key Project of Research and Development Plan (2023-YBNY-264). Thanks for the support of “Integrated protection and restoration project of mountain, water, forest, farmland, lake, grass and sand at the northern foot of Qinling Mountain in Shaanxi province” provides. We sincerely thank all the scientists whose data and work were included in this meta-analysis. We are also grateful to the anonymous referees whose comments and suggestions helped us to enhance the quality of this paper.

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Author notes

  1. Yulin Xu and Yuqing Zhao should be considered joint first author.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agronomy, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Yulin Xu, Yuqing Zhao, Xinyu Cha, Wanlin Yang, Mengtao Zheng, Shuang Liu, Yuxiao Wang, Xinhui Han, Gaihe Yang & Chengjie Ren

  2. The Research Center of Recycle Agricultural Engineering and Technology of Shaanxi Province, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Yulin Xu, Yuqing Zhao, Xinyu Cha, Wanlin Yang, Mengtao Zheng, Shuang Liu, Yuxiao Wang, Xinhui Han, Gaihe Yang & Chengjie Ren

  3. Key Laboratory of Agricultural Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Andong Cai

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  1. Yulin Xu
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Contributions

YX: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, investigation, visualization, writing—original draft. YZ: Conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, visualization, writing—original draft. XC: Data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology. WY: Data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology. MZ: Data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology. SL: Data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology. YW: Data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology. AC: Formal analysis, investigation, methodology. XH: Writing—review and editing. GY: Writing—review and editing. CR: Conceptualization, Writing—review and editing, data curation, funding acquisition, supervision, writing—original draft.

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Correspondence to Chengjie Ren.

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Xu, Y., Zhao, Y., Cha, X. et al. Nitrogen addition-driven soil organic carbon stability depends on the fractions of particulate and mineral-associated organic carbon. Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst 128, 269–281 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-024-10343-y

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