Emerging relationships among soil microbes, carbon dynamics and climate change

Abstract

Abstract Soils represent the largest carbon (C) pool in terrestrial ecosystems. The preservation and increase of soil C play a significant role in the fight against climate change, and can deliver other key ecosystem services beyond climate mitigation. Soil C responses to climate change are largely driven by soil microbial communities, but they still represent a major source of uncertainty when predicting soil C variation in space and time. This Special Feature identifies emerging findings from soil microbial ecology and climate change research that can reduce such uncertainty if incorporated into theory and models. The contributions span from novel perspectives on the priming effect and soil microbial enzymes, to understudied key biomes for global soil C such as tropical forests, to plant inputs–microbial necromass–mineral interactions, to soil C and microbial responses to changing precipitation patterns and recent advances in trait‐based and soil C modelling. Together, this collection of papers draws attention to novel frameworks and ideas that can pave the road for future research on microbial contribution to soil C turnover and storage under climate change.