Search

The radiocarbon signature of respired CO2 (∆14C‐CO2) measured in laboratory soil incubations integrates contributions from soil carbon pools with a wide range of ages, making it a powerful model constraint. Incubating archived soils enriched by "bomb‐C" from mid‐20th century nuclear weapons testing would be even more powerful as it would enable us to trace this pulse over time. However, air‐drying and subsequent rewetting of archived soils, as well as storage duration, may alter the relative contribution to respiration from soil carbon pools with different cycling rates. We designed three experiments to assess air‐drying and rewetting effects on ∆14C‐CO2 with constant storage duration (Experiment 1), without storage (Experiment 2), and with variable storage duration (Experiment 3). We found that air‐drying and rewetting led to small but significant (α < 0.05) shifts in ∆14C‐CO2 relative to undried controls in all experiments, with grassland soils responding more strongly than forest soils. Storage duration (4–14 y) did not have a substantial effect. Mean differences (95% CIs) for experiments 1, 2, and 3 were: 23.3‰ (±6.6), 19.6‰ (±10.3), and 29.3‰ (±29.1) for grassland soils, versus −11.6‰ (±4.1), 12.7‰ (±8.5), and −24.2‰ (±13.2) for forest soils. Our results indicate that air‐drying and rewetting soils mobilizes a slightly older pool of carbon that would otherwise be inaccessible to microbes, an effect that persists throughout the incubation. However, as the bias in ∆14C‐CO2 from air‐drying and rewetting is small, measuring ∆14C‐CO2 in incubations of archived soils appears to be a promising technique for constraining soil carbon models. Plain Language Summary: Soils play a key role in the global carbon cycle by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere for decades to millennia. However, it is unclear if they will continue to do so as the climate changes. Microbial decomposition of soil organic matter returns carbon back to the atmosphere, and radiocarbon dating of this returning CO2 (∆14C‐CO2) can be used to quantify how long carbon is stored in ecosystems. Incubating archived soils could provide unique insight into soil carbon sequestration potential by quantifying the change in ∆14C‐CO2 over time. However, air‐drying, duration of archiving, and subsequent rewetting of soils may bias estimates of sequestration potential by altering the balance of younger versus older carbon leaving the soil. We compared ∆14C‐CO2 from soils incubated with and without air‐drying and archiving, and found that the air‐dried soils appeared to release slightly older carbon than soils that had never been air‐dried. The amount of time the soils were archived did not have an effect. Since the bias from air‐drying and rewetting was small, incubating archived soils appears to be a promising technique for improving our ability to model soil carbon cycling under global climate change. Key Points: ∆14C of CO2 measured in incubations of archived soils provides additional constraints for soil carbon modelsAir‐drying and rewetting soils shifted the ∆14C of respired CO2 by 10‰–20‰ independent of the duration of storageDifferences in direction and magnitude of ∆14C‐CO2 shifts between forests and grasslands depended on sampling year and system C dynamics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnitude of future emissions of greenhouse gases from the northern permafrost region depends crucially on the mineralization of soil organic carbon (SOC) that has accumulated over millennia in these perennially frozen soils. Many recent studies have used radiocarbon (14C) to quantify the release of this "old" SOC as CO2 or CH4 to the atmosphere or as dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC) to surface waters. We compiled ~1,900 14C measurements from 51 sites in the northern permafrost region to assess the vulnerability of thawing SOC in tundra, forest, peatland, lake, and river ecosystems. We found that growing season soil 14C‐CO2 emissions generally had a modern (post‐1950s) signature, but that well‐drained, oxic soils had increased CO2 emissions derived from older sources following recent thaw. The age of CO2 and CH4 emitted from lakes depended primarily on the age and quantity of SOC in sediments and on the mode of emission, and indicated substantial losses of previously frozen SOC from actively expanding thermokarst lakes. Increased fluvial export of aged DOC and POC occurred from sites where permafrost thaw caused soil thermal erosion. There was limited evidence supporting release of previously frozen SOC as CO2, CH4, and DOC from thawing peatlands with anoxic soils. This synthesis thus suggests widespread but not universal release of permafrost SOC following thaw. We show that different definitions of "old" sources among studies hamper the comparison of vulnerability of permafrost SOC across ecosystems and disturbances. We also highlight opportunities for future 14C studies in the permafrost region. Key Points: We compiled ~1,900 14C measurements of CO2, CH4, DOC, and POC from the northern permafrost regionOld carbon release increases in thawed oxic soils (CO2), thermokarst lakes (CH4 and CO2), and headwaters with thermal erosion (DOC and POC)Simultaneous and year‐long 14C analyses of CO2, CH4, DOC, and POC are needed to assess the vulnerability of permafrost carbon across ecosystems [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnitude of carbon (C) loss to the atmosphere via microbial decomposition is a function of the amount of C stored in soils, the quality of the organic matter, and physical, chemical, and biological factors that comprise the environment for decomposition. The decomposability of C is commonly assessed by laboratory soil incubation studies that measure greenhouse gases mineralized from soils under controlled conditions. Here, we introduce the Soil Incubation Database (SIDb) version 1.0, a compilation of time series data from incubations, structured into a new, publicly available, open-access database of C flux (carbon dioxide, CO2 , or methane, CH4). In addition, the SIDb project also provides a platform for the development of tools for reading and analysis of incubation data as well as documentation for future use and development. In addition to introducing SIDb, we provide reporting guidance for database entry and the required variables that incubation studies need at minimum to be included in SIDb. A key application of this synthesis effort is to better characterize soil C processes in Earth system models, which will in turn reduce our uncertainty in predicting the response of soil C decomposition to a changing climate. We demonstrate a framework to fit curves to a number of incubation studies from diverse ecosystems, depths, and organic matter content using a built-in model development module that integrates SIDb with the existing SoilR package to estimate soil C pools from time series data. The database will help bridge the gap between point location measurements, which are commonly used in incubation studies, and global remote-sensed data or data products derived from models aimed at assessing global-scale rates of decomposition and C turnover. The SIDb version 1.0 is archived and publicly available at 10.5281/zenodo.3871263 (Sierra et al., 2020), and the database is managed under a version-controlled system and centrally stored in GitHub (https://github.com/SoilBGC-Datashare/sidb , last access: 26 June 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnitude of carbon (C) loss to the atmosphere via microbial decomposition is a function of the amount of C stored in soils, the quality of the organic matter, and physical, chemical and biological factors that comprise the environment for decomposition. The decomposability of C is commonly assessed by laboratory soil incubation studies that measure greenhouse gases mineralized from soils under controlled conditions. Here, we introduce the Soil Incubation Database (SIDb) version 1.0, a compilation of time series data from incubations, structured into a new, publicly available database of C flux (carbon dioxide, CO2, or methane, CH4). In addition to open access, the SIDb project also provides a platform for the development of tools for reading and analysis of incubation data as well as documentation for future use and development. In addition to introducing SIDb, we provide reporting guidance for database entry and the required variables that incubation studies need at minimum to be included in SIDb. A key application of this synthesis effort is to better characterize soil C processes in Earth system models, which will in turn reduce our uncertainty in predicting the response of soil C decomposition to a changing climate. We demonstrate a framework to fit curves to a number of incubation studies from diverse ecosystems, depths, and organic matter content using a built-in model development module that integrates SIDb with the existing SoilR package to estimate soil C pools from time series data. The database will help bridge the gap between site-level measurements, which are commonly used in incubation studies, and global remote-sensed data or data products derived from models aimed at assessing global-scale rates of decomposition and C turnover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]