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Multidecadal persistence of soil carbon gains on retired cropland following fertilizer cessation

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 1014–1019 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Humans have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), causing major changes in global climate while concurrently increasing the supply of biologically limiting nutrients especially nitrogen (N). Despite myriad negative effects on ecosystems and human health, nutrient pollution can increase the storage of soil carbon (C) in grasslands and retired farmland, potentially reducing atmospheric CO2. However, the persistence of nutrient-induced soil carbon gains remains a knowledge gap at the heart of a potential policy dilemma: whether reducing nutrient pollution could lead to the release of soil carbon that accumulated under high nutrient supply. Here we use a four-decade experiment conducted on retired, marginal cropland to demonstrate that nutrient addition increased soil C storage after intensive tilling, and that these soil C gains persisted for at least three decades following fertilizer and tilling cessation. This occurred despite plant biomass rapidly returning to pre-fertilization levels and plant community composition recovering from the effects of fertilization. These results demonstrate that nutrient-induced increases in soil C can persist for decades following reduced nutrient pollution as long as the soil remains untilled.

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Fig. 1: Soil C and N concentrations four decades after the start of the experiment.
Fig. 2: Soil C concentrations in plots with 42 years of continuous fertilization and plots in which fertilization ceased after 10 years.
Fig. 3: Soil N concentrations in plots with 42 years of continuous fertilization and plots in which fertilization ceased after 10 years.
Fig. 4: Aboveground live biomass in plots with 42 years of continuous fertilization and plots in which fertilization ceased after 10 years.
Fig. 5: Proportion of dead biomass (dead biomass/total biomass) in plots with 42 years of continuous fertilization and plots in which fertilization ceased after 10 years.

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Data availability

All data are available via the Environmental Data Initiative data repository at https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/10dfeaaf9068e99246ca8b6c4ad14c50 (ref. 58), https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/b7bc6704f9b15fcd29842fa23c96f314 (ref. 59) and https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/f2ab91096cb3bb672182ba091cb467c1 (ref. 60).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff, scientists and interns at Cedar Creek who have participated in this work over the decades. This work was supported by grants from the US National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LTER) including DEB-1234162 and DEB-1831944. Support also was provided by the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve and the University of Minnesota.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Eric W. Seabloom, Sarah E. Hobbie & Elizabeth T. Borer

  2. Deptartment of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

    Andrew S. MacDougall

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  1. Eric W. Seabloom
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E.W.S. wrote the paper, with contributions from S.E.H., A.S.M. and E.T.B. E.W.S. analysed the data.

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Correspondence to Eric W. Seabloom.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Enqing Hou and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Xujia Jiang and Carolina Ortiz Guerrero, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Seabloom, E.W., Hobbie, S.E., MacDougall, A.S. et al. Multidecadal persistence of soil carbon gains on retired cropland following fertilizer cessation. Nat. Geosci. 18, 1014–1019 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01801-5

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