Impacts of Drying and Rewetting on the Radiocarbon Signature of Respired CO2 and Implications for Incubating Archived Soils

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External Research Organisations

  • Max Planck Institute of Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC)
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • University of California at Irvine
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Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2020JG006119
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
Volume126
Issue number9
Early online date27 Aug 2021
Publication statusPublished - 14 Sept 2021

Abstract

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.

Keywords

    climate change, incubation, radiocarbon, soil archives, soil carbon, soil carbon modeling

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Sustainable Development Goals

Cite this

Impacts of Drying and Rewetting on the Radiocarbon Signature of Respired CO2 and Implications for Incubating Archived Soils. / Beem-Miller, Jeffrey; Schrumpf, Marion; Hoyt, Alison M. et al.
In: Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, Vol. 126, No. 9, e2020JG006119, 14.09.2021.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Beem-Miller J, Schrumpf M, Hoyt AM, Guggenberger G, Trumbore S. Impacts of Drying and Rewetting on the Radiocarbon Signature of Respired CO2 and Implications for Incubating Archived Soils. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 2021 Sept 14;126(9):e2020JG006119. Epub 2021 Aug 27. doi: 10.1029/2020JG006119
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abstract = "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.",
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