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Decadal persistence of grassland soil organic matter derived from litter and pyrogenic inputs

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 226–231 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

The stabilization of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) from organic inputs in soil organic matter constitutes a critical process in ecosystem biogeochemistry, yet the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. Several frameworks have been proposed to explain particulate- and mineral-associated organic matter persistence, but a lack of long-term data has stymied their reconciliation. Here we present the results of an in-field incubation in a grassland in Kansas, USA, that followed 13C- and 15N-labelled plant litter and pyrogenic organic matter through the decomposition process and into soil organic matter fractions over the course of a decade. At the end of the experiment, 7.0% and 24.2% of the initial litter C and N, respectively, remained in the soil, while 60.8% and 54.4% of the initial pyrogenic organic matter C and N, respectively, remained. Litter-derived mineral-associated organic matter formed within the first year of litter decomposition, and 10-year sampling revealed that it had persisted relatively unchanged, in terms of both litter-derived C stocks and C:N ratio. These results provide further evidence that mineral-associated organic matter is stabilized via the sorption of soluble inputs and suggest that stabilization and persistence can occur largely independent of particulate organic matter dynamics.

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Fig. 1: Litter- and PyOM-derived C remaining in the top 5 cm of soil as percentage of the initial C.
Fig. 2: Distribution of litter- and PyOM input-derived C and N among physical SOM fractions.
Fig. 3: Litter- and PyOM-derived C:N ratios of SOM fractions over the course of the incubation.
Fig. 4: Temporal coefficient of variation for the litter-derived (left) and PyOM-derived (right) C and N stocks throughout the experimental period.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14510075 (ref. 46).

Code availability

The code for the calculation, interpretation and visualization of these data is available via GitHub at https://github.com/S-Leuthold/Bluestem_PyOM.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by NSF-DEB award number 2016003 (M.F.C.) and USDA NIFA award number 2021-67019-34241 (M.F.C.). We thank K. Rocci and A. Prairie for their assistance in data collection, and the staff of the Konza Prairie LTER site for their support in the establishment and maintenance of the experiment for its duration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Sam J. Leuthold, Jennifer L. Soong, Rebecca J. Even & M. Francesca Cotrufo

  2. Mathematica, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Jennifer L. Soong

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Contributions

M.F.C. and J.L.S. designed the study. R.J.E. and J.L.S. performed the laboratory analyses. S.J.L. performed the data analysis. All authors contributed to the interpretation of results. S.J.L. wrote the paper with input from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sam J. Leuthold.

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Competing interests

M.F.C. and R.J.E. declare the following competing interests: they are cofounders of Cquester Analytics LLC, a service analytical facility that provides the analyses of SOM. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information

Nature Geoscience thanks Sarah O’Brien and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Stefan Lachowycz, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Evidence of down-profile transfer of isotopically enriched material over the course of the incubation period.

The amount of enriched PyOM material in the top 2 cm decreased over the incubation period (-41%), while the amount of PyOM in the 2-5 cm and 5-10 cm depth increments increased (130% and 353%, respectively). While our sampling was limited to 10 cm at the final harvest, this pattern suggests that down profile movement of the PyOM is an important loss mechanism of PyOM in grassland systems. Bar height represents the cumulative mean (n = 4), error bars are equal to the mean +/- 1 SE.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3, discussion and Table 1.

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Leuthold, S.J., Soong, J.L., Even, R.J. et al. Decadal persistence of grassland soil organic matter derived from litter and pyrogenic inputs. Nat. Geosci. 18, 226–231 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01638-y

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