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Redox control on rhizosphere priming in wetlands

Nature Geoscience volume 17, pages 1209–1217 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Rhizosphere priming describes a positive or negative change in the rate of soil organic matter decomposition caused by root activity and represents an important terrestrial soil–climate feedback. Few studies have investigated rhizosphere priming in wetlands, despite their disproportionate role in the global soil carbon budget. Here we present a literature analysis to show that both positive and negative rhizosphere priming can be much stronger in wetland than upland ecosystems. We argue that differences in plant–soil microbial interactions between dominantly oxic and anoxic soil environments induce the different degrees of rhizosphere priming effects. A conceptual framework is proposed in which wetland plants control soil redox status by acting as sources of both electron donors and acceptors, thereby influencing soil carbon stability through interactions with microbial communities. We identify key uncertainties in the mechanistic and quantitative understanding of wetland rhizosphere priming and demonstrate how priming could govern wetland soil carbon dynamics and ecosystem stability in response to climate change.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of rhizosphere priming effects.
Fig. 2: Comparison of rhizosphere priming effects.
Fig. 3: Redox mediation of wetland rhizosphere priming.

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Data availability

Data are available from our OSF data repository at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/4V73N.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded through the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) Emmy Noether Program (502681570), the National Science Foundation Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology Program (DEB-0950080, DEB-1457100, DEB-1557009 and DEB-2051343), the Department of Energy Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Program (DE-FG02-97ER62458, DE-SC0014413, DE-SC0019110 and DE-SC0021112), the Department of Energy Environmental System Science Program through the COMPASS-FME project (DE-AC05-76RL01830), the United States Geological Survey (G10AC00675) and the Smithsonian Institution.

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  1. Institute of Landscape Ecology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Peter Mueller

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

    J. Patrick Megonigal

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  1. Peter Mueller
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  2. J. Patrick Megonigal
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P.M. and J.P.M. conceived the study. P.M. conducted the literature survey and meta-analysis. P.M. and J.P.M. wrote the paper in equal shares.

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Correspondence to Peter Mueller or J. Patrick Megonigal.

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Mueller, P., Megonigal, J.P. Redox control on rhizosphere priming in wetlands. Nat. Geosci. 17, 1209–1217 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01584-1

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