![]() ![]() " plant and microbial biodiversity and functions can be restored by improving grassland management, leading to substantial carbon removal from the atmosphere thus contributing to climate change mitigation," Cotrufo said. The researchers also found that continuous livestock grazing reduces plant cover, diversity and productivity, and that seasonal or rotational grazing show the least negative effects and can even promote soil carbon storage. Other findings include that high levels of biodiversity are germane for carbon storage that microbial diversity promotes the stabilization efficiency of grass litter-derived POM but reduces that of MAOM and that carbon sequestration capacity per unit nitrogen in soil is 1.7 times greater in ecosystems dominated by ectomycorrhizal fungi–associated plants such as savannas, shrublands and forests than ecosystems dominated by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi–associated plants such as grasslands, while MAOM is still relatively higher in the latter category of ecosystems. The researchers found, for example, that 80% of European grasslands are below saturation of carbon storage, indicating unmet potential in carbon sequestration. ![]() "Our analysis presents by different world regions and management strategies, thus facilitating policy and decision making," said Bai. With this understanding, the researchers used the existing literature to explore how soil carbon sequestration changes with grassland types, soil properties and climate conditions. MAOM contributes to longer-term carbon sequestration in soil than POM because of its strong chemical bonding to minerals and physical protection in fine aggregates. The majority of organic carbon soil is either particulate organic matter (POM), which is formed from the fragmentation of plant and microbial residues, or mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM), which is formed from single small molecules that are leached from plant residues or exuded from plant roots. "In the past decade, there has been a paradigm shift in the understanding of the processes contributing to soil organic matter formation and persistence, which have highlighted the key role of microbial transformations and necromass on soil organic carbon accrual," Cotrufo said. While storing carbon in grassland soil has been proven to be an attainable strategy for removing it from the atmosphere, the specifics of global grassland soil carbon sequestration-how, where and how much-still require more research for a deeper understanding and to form best practice recommendations, according to the researchers. "This is the first review which applies the new paradigm of soil organic matter formation and persistence to both discuss the effect of global changes on grasslands' soil organic carbon and estimate the potentials of soil organic carbon sequestration of global grasslands," said first author Bai Yongfei of the Institute of Botany at Chinese Academy of Sciences. ![]() The review article was published in Science on Aug. ![]()
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