Carbon cycle
Plant diversity builds soil carbon via microbes
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Higher plant species richness raises soil organic carbon by boosting microbial growth, biomass, and fungal necromass, not carbon-use efficiency.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Not yet placed on a claim. This paper has study layers, but no concept page yet cites it as support, challenge, or qualifier.
Discoveries this paper informs or conflicts with
- More plant species meant more soil carbon — through microbial biomass, not efficiency
This paper informs this development.
Inspect source passages
Plant diversity builds soil carbon via microbes
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
SOC concentrations increased by 29% from monocultures to 60-species plots.
SOC concentrations increased by 29% from monocultures to plots containing 60 plant species (Table , Figure a).
Microbial biomass increased by 58% from 1 to 60 plant species.
The strongest effect of PSR on soil microbial parameters was on microbial biomass, which increased by 58% from PSR values of 1–60 (Table , Figure g).
Key findings
SOC rose 29% from monocultures to 60-species plots. Microbial biomass rose 58% and growth about twofold while respiration rose only 1.5-fold. Carbon-use efficiency did not change; SOC tracked microbial biomass more than root carbon.
Methodology
Authors sampled 85 grassland plots in the Jena Experiment (1–60 plant species) and measured soil organic carbon, microbial biomass, growth, respiration, carbon-use efficiency, and fungal versus bacterial necromass, then linked those pools with path analysis.
Limitations
A single September 2015 snapshot in one German grassland cannot prove that the same microbial path operates in forests, croplands, or under future climate; CUE was statistically unchanged rather than shown to be irrelevant in all soils.
Related papers in this topic
Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.