Abstract :
[en] 1. Tree lines in high latitudes and high altitudes are considered sentinels of global
change. This manifests in accelerated encroachment of trees and shrubs and en-
hanced plant productivity, with currently unknown implications for the carbon
balance of these biomes. Given the large soil organic carbon stocks in many tree
line soils, we here wondered whether introducing highly productive plants would
accelerate carbon cycling through rhizosphere priming effects and if certain soils
would be more vulnerable to carbon loss from positive priming than others.
2. To test this, organic and mineral soils were sampled above and below tree lines
in the Swedish sub-arctic and the Peruvian Andes. A greenhouse experiment was
then performed to quantify plant-induced changes in soil mineralisation rates
(rhizosphere priming effect) and new C formation using natural abundance label-
ling and the C4-species Cynodon dactylon. Several environmental, plant, soil and
microbial parameter were monitored during the experiment to complement the
observations on soil C cycling.
3. Priming was predominantly positive at the beginning of the experiment, then sys-
tematically decreased in all soils during the plant growth season to be mostly
negative at the end of the experiment at plant senescence. Independent of direc -
tion of priming, the magnitude of priming was always greater in organic than in
corresponding mineral soils, which was best explained by the higher C contents of
these soils. Integrated over the entire study period, the overall impact of priming
(positive and negative) on the soil C balance was mostly negligible. Though net
soil C loss was observed in organic soils from the sub-arctic tundra in Sweden.
4. Most notably, positive and negative priming effects were not mutually exclu-
sive, rather omnipresent across ecosystems, depending on sampling time. The
direction of priming seems to be fluctuating with plant productivity, rhizosphere
carbon inputs and nutrient uptake. This highlights the need for integrative long-
term studies if we aim to understand priming effects at ecosystem scale and greenhouse and laboratory studies must be validated in situ to enable reliable
ecological upscaling.
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