Nature – Pellegrini et al. (2023): Soil carbon storage capacity of drylands under altered fire regimes
Adam F. A. Pellegrini, Peter B. Reich, Sarah E. Hobbie, Corli Coetsee, Benjamin Wigley, Edmund February, Katerina Georgiou, Cesar Terrer, E. N. J. Brookshire, Anders Ahlström, Lars Nieradzik, Stephen Sitch, Joe R. Melton, Matthew Forrest, Fang Li, Stijn Hantson, Chantelle Burton, Chao Yue, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson IN: Nature Climate Change, 13, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01800-7
Here the authors combined datasets and field sampling of fire-manipulation experiments to evaluate where and why fire changes Soil organic carbon (SOC) and compared a statistical model to simulations from ecosystem models. Drier ecosystems experienced larger relative changes in SOC than humid ecosystems—in some cases exceeding losses from plant biomass pools—primarily explained by high fire-driven declines in tree biomass inputs in dry ecosystems. Many ecosystem models underestimated the SOC changes in drier ecosystems.