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Soil respiration response to decade-long warming modulated by soil moisture in a boreal forest

Nature Geoscience volume 17, pages 905–911 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The effects of long-term climate warming on soil respiration and its drivers remain unclear in forests, which store approximately 40% of global soil carbon. Here we conducted a climate change experiment for 13 years in forest plots planted with tree juveniles at two southern boreal forest sites. Treatments included simultaneous above- and below-ground warming (ambient, +1.7 °C and +3.3 °C) under different rainfall scenarios (100% and 60% of summer rainfall) and contrasting overstory canopy openness (open and closed). Soil respiration increased by 7% and 17% under +1.7 °C and +3.3 °C warming, respectively, averaged across all sites, treatments and years. These increases in respiration were higher than impacts per degree warming of the only two prior long-term, but soil-only, forest warming experiments. Moreover, warming effects on soil respiration varied significantly over time. Under almost all conditions, moist soil exhibited a greater increase in respiration in response to warming than dry soil. Our results suggest that a realistic range of anticipated conditions, including both above- and below-ground temperature and moisture, should be accounted for when predicting warming effects on soil respiration.

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Fig. 1: Annual average soil respiration (RS) under different treatments at two sites (CFC and HWRC) over 13 years.
Fig. 2: Structural equation model analyses of effects of experimental warming, canopy removal and rainfall reduction on soil respiration (RS) through altering soil temperature and moisture.
Fig. 3: The change in soil respiration (RS) caused by experimental warming under different percentiles of ambient soil moisture.
Fig. 4: Three-year rolling mean change in annual soil respiration (RS) under experimental warming relative to ambient treatment.

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Data availability

All data used and source data for figures and tables in this study are archived in figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.26488219.v1)35.

Code availability

The R scripts needed to reproduce the analysis are archived in figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.26488219.v1)35.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the many field assistants who were involved in implementing and maintaining the experimental facility, the experimental planting and the measurements of soil respiration presented in this paper. This research was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science and Office of Biological and Environmental Research award number DE-FG02-07ER64456; the National Science Foundation, Biological Integration Institutes grant NSF-DBI-2021898; DOE National Institute for Climate Change Research award; DOE Global Change Education Program; Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station MN-42-030 and MN-42-060; and the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences and Wilderness Research Foundation, University of Minnesota.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Guopeng Liang, Artur Stefanski, Raimundo Bermudez, Rebecca A. Montgomery, Roy L. Rich & Peter B. Reich

  2. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA

    William C. Eddy & Sarah E. Hobbie

  3. Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    William C. Eddy

  4. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA

    Roy L. Rich

  5. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia

    Peter B. Reich

  6. Institute for Global Change Biology and School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Peter B. Reich

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  1. Guopeng Liang
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Contributions

P.B.R., R.A.M., R.L.R. and S.E.H. conceived and designed the original experiment and the experimental warming and rainfall manipulations. P.B.R., A.S., R.B. and R.L.R. managed the experiment over time. A.S., R.B. and R.L.R. collectively implemented the experiment. A.S., R.B. and W.C.E. supervised or performed the acquisition of all soil respiration data. A.S., R.B. and R.L.R. acquired all soil temperature and moisture and rainfall data, and curated all data. G.L. and P.B.R. developed the idea for this study. G.L. carried out all analyses with suggestions from P.B.R. and S.E.H., constructed the figures and tables and wrote the first draft. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results and were involved in writing and editing subsequent drafts. P.B.R. and R.A.M. were responsible for acquiring the funding for the project, and P.B.R. was responsible for all project supervision and administration.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Guopeng Liang or Peter B. Reich.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Jennifer Watts and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Xujia Jiang, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Change in annual soil respiration and stem biomass caused by warming under different treatments at two sites (CFC and HWRC) over 13 years.

Panels under “Closed canopy (Ambient rainfall)” and “Open canopy (Ambient rainfall)” show results under different overstory canopy openness; panels under “Open canopy (Ambient rainfall)” and “Open canopy (Rainfall reduction)” show results under different rainfall amounts. Panels a, b, c and d show the results of the changes in RS, RH, RA and stem biomass caused by warming, respectively. Arrows represent the period that rainfall reduction treatment was applied. Error bars are standard errors of the mean for each treatment combination. The results from all plots before the beginning of rainfall treatments (<2012) were used for both “Open canopy (Ambient rainfall)” and “Open canopy (Rainfall reduction)”; therefore, identical results before 2012 were shown for both treatments. RS: soil total respiration; RH: soil heterotrophic respiration; RA: soil autotrophic respiration. The sample size was 3 for all treatments in each year at each site.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Mean soil respiration and stem biomass averaged across all measurements at two sites (experimental warming × overstory canopy openness).

Panels a, b, c and d show he results of RS, RH, RA and stem biomass, respectively. Error bars are standard errors of the mean for each treatment combination. RS: soil total respiration; RH: soil heterotrophic respiration; RA: soil autotrophic respiration. The sample size was 6 and 3 under closed and open canopy, respectively.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Mean soil moisture averaged across all measurements at two sites.

Error bars are standard errors of the mean for each treatment combination. For panel a, the sample size was 6 and 3 under closed and open canopy, respectively; for panel b, the sample size was 3 for all treatment combinations.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Mean soil respiration and stem biomass averaged across all measurements at two sites (experimental warming × rainfall amount).

Panels a, b, c and d show the results of RS, RH, RA and stem biomass, respectively. Error bars are standard errors of the mean for each treatment combination. RS: soil total respiration; RH: soil heterotrophic respiration; RA: soil autotrophic respiration. For RS and RA, the sample size was 6; for RH and stem biomass, the sample size was 3.

Extended Data Fig. 5 The relationship between stem biomass and soil respiration (a-c) and between the changes in stem biomass and soil respiration caused by warming (d-f).

Simple linear regressions were conducted, and P values were shown only when P < 0.1. The mean values across years from each plot were used to determine the relationships in panels a-c; the mean values of each block from each year were used to determine the relationships in panels d-f.

Extended Data Fig. 6 The change in soil respiration caused by experimental warming under different percentiles of ambient soil moisture.

Panels under “Closed canopy (Ambient rainfall)” and “Open canopy (Ambient rainfall)” show results under different overstory canopy openness; panels under “Open canopy (Ambient rainfall)” and “Open canopy (Rainfall reduction)” show results under different rainfall amounts. Ambient soil moisture is soil moisture under ambient warming treatment. Panels a and b show the results of the changes in RH and RA caused by warming, respectively. The measurements of soil moisture and respiration from all campaigns over 13 years were used. RH: soil heterotrophic respiration; RA: soil autotrophic respiration. Values in the parentheses represent the sample size under different percentiles for each treatment combination.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Three-year rolling mean change in annual soil respiration and stem biomass under experimental warming relative to ambient treatment.

Panels under “Closed canopy (Ambient rainfall)” and “Open canopy (Ambient rainfall)” show results under different overstory canopy openness; panels under “Open canopy (Ambient rainfall)” and “Open canopy (Rainfall reduction)” show results under different rainfall amounts. Panels a, b and c show the results of the changes in RH, RA and stem biomass caused by warming, respectively. No data were shown for “09-11”, “10-12”, and “11-13” under Open canopy (Rainfall reduction) treatment because rainfall reduction treatment was conducted in 2012. RH: soil heterotrophic respiration; RA: soil autotrophic respiration.

Extended Data Table 1 Average values of soil respiration, temperature, moisture, and stem biomass under different experimental warming levels, overstory canopy openness, rainfall amounts, and field sites across the course of the experiment
Full size table

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Supplementary Figs. 1–7 and Tables 1–3.

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Liang, G., Stefanski, A., Eddy, W.C. et al. Soil respiration response to decade-long warming modulated by soil moisture in a boreal forest. Nat. Geosci. 17, 905–911 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01512-3

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