Temperature increases soil respiration across ecosystem types and soil development, but soil properties determine the magnitude of this effect

Abstract

Soil carbon losses to the atmosphere, via soil heterotrophic respiration, are expected to increase in response to global warming, resulting in a positive carbon-climate feedback. Despite the well-known suite of abiotic and biotic factors controlling soil respiration, much less is known about how the magnitude of soil respiration responses to temperature changes over soil development and across contrasting soil properties. Here, we investigated the role of soil development stage and soil properties in driving the responses of soil heterotrophic respiration to increasing temperatures. We incubated soils from eight chronosequences ranging in soil age from hundreds to million years, and encompassing a wide range of vegetation types, climatic conditions, and chronosequences origins, at three assay temperatures (5, 15 and 25{degrees}C). We found a consistent positive effect of assay temperature on soil respiration rates across the eight chronosequences evaluated. However, soil properties such as organic carbon concentration, texture, pH, phosphorus content, and microbial biomass determined the magnitude of temperature effects on soil respiration. Finally, we observed a positive effect of soil development stage on soil respiration that did not alter the magnitude of assay temperature effects. Our work reveals that key soil properties alter the magnitude of the positive effect of temperature on soil respiration found across ecosystem types and soil development stages. This information is essential to better understand the magnitude of the carbon-climate feedback, and thus to establish accurate greenhouse gas emission targets.