European Journal of Soil Science最新文献

{"title":"Soil Quality Indicators in Agroecological Practices: Lessons From a Systematic Review of Long-Term Experiments","authors":"Anita Maienza,&nbsp;Gabriele Buttafuoco,&nbsp;Gherardo Biancofiore,&nbsp;Akin Ün,&nbsp;Javier Renovell,&nbsp;Martin Pisarčik,&nbsp;Pavel Fuksa,&nbsp;Jerzy Grabiński,&nbsp;Erica Lumini,&nbsp;Sara Di Lonardo,&nbsp;Michelle Kushnir,&nbsp;Josef Hakl,&nbsp;Monika Vilkiene,&nbsp;Ieva Mockeviciene,&nbsp;Baiba Dirnena,&nbsp;Sabina Asins-Velis","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70138","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In recent decades, there has been increasing recognition of soil as a vital and non-renewable natural resource that provides essential environmental, economic, and social benefits. Agronomic and soil management practices—such as tillage systems, crop rotation, and nutrient applications—significantly influence near-surface soil properties and related ecosystem services. There is growing interest in defining soil quality and establishing specific indicators regarding conservation practices. This systematic review was focused on Long-Term Field Experiments (LTEs) conducted in seven countries: Czech Republic, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, and Turkey. The review examined the most frequently studied soil quality properties related to agroecological practices. Our goal was also to standardize the results based on the advanced works in recent years on soil ecosystem services. The findings underscore the strong interest in sustainable production with a particularly high presence of agroecological soil practices in Long-Term Field Experiments (LTEs), especially in Italy and the Czech Republic. Cereals are among the most extensively studied crops under organic amendments and tillage intensity trials in the reviewed papers. Soil properties related to climate and environmental services (such as organic carbon) are the main indicators studied. Additionally, the review highlights a significant gap in soil biodiversity indicators in the agroecological long-term studies analysed. As a future direction, it is crucial to develop new, holistic soil quality indicators that encompass chemical–physical and biological aspects for soil monitoring and conservation.</p>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejss.70138","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144492910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Applying LSTM to Model Multi-Depth Soil Moisture Under Various Land Covers, Climates and Soils","authors":"Nasrin Azad,&nbsp;Amirreza Sheikhbaglou,&nbsp;Francis Zvomuya,&nbsp;Hailong He","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70142","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Accurate estimation of multi-depth/profile soil moisture (SM) is required for sustainable water management in agriculture and hydrology. However, monitoring SM is costly and labour-intensive, and only limited soil depths can be instrumented with soil moisture sensors. Therefore, various numerical simulation and data assimilation techniques have been used in multi-depth soil moisture estimation. Machine learning (ML) has also gained popularity in SM estimation due to its ease of use and robustness, although proper handling of ML models also requires expertise and experience. However, the applicability of ML to estimate time series of multi-depth SM under different land uses is mainly limited by the choice of ML models and the availability of SM data. In addition, the reliability of the trained model remains unknown when it is applied to different locations. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the widely used Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model to estimate multi-depth SM under different land covers, climates, and soils. A minimum of 10 years' daily meteorological and soil data at multiple depths were collected from six U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) stations with different land covers and various climates and soils. These data were used to train the LSTM model and optimize its input parameters. Performance of the trained LSTM model was evaluated for multi-depth SM estimation at two other “monitoring” stations with similar conditions. SM modeling at shallow depths (e.g., 5, 10 and 20 cm) was most accurate (&lt; 10% mean absolute percent error, MAPE) with precipitation and antecedent time series of SM as inputs, while the best SM estimates at deeper depths (e.g., 50 and 100 cm) were attained with antecedent SM time series as the input. Generation of the trained LSTM model from one station to other stations emphasized on the similar soil and land cover conditions. It is hoped that this research would provide better understandings of multi-depth SM modeling and offer new insights improving profile SM modeling accuracy for un-instrumented sites.</p>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejss.70142","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144482230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Combined and Extended Procedure for Measuring the Soil Water Retention and Hydraulic Conductivity Curves","authors":"Cristina P. Contreras,&nbsp;Sara E. Acevedo,&nbsp;Carlos J. Ávila,&nbsp;Sofía I. Martínez,&nbsp;Carlos A. Bonilla","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70141","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Soil-specific properties like water retention and hydraulic conductivity are largely used in soil and environmental modelling and are typically obtained after laboratory analyses. So far, no single method is available to measure the entire suction range for water retention or hydraulic conductivity. Common methods for describing the soil water retention curve (SWRC) include simplified evaporation, pressure plates, neutron spectroscopy, and dewpoint. Regarding hydraulic conductivity, the techniques vary for the saturated or unsaturated condition, using tension disks and transient evaporation methods. In the search for a procedure to describe the entire water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves, the objective of this study was to illustrate the combination and use of a series of laboratory methods in eight different semi-hierarchical combinations to cover the whole suction range (0 <span></span><math>\u0000 <semantics>\u0000 <mrow>\u0000 <mo>≤</mo>\u0000 </mrow>\u0000 <annotation>$$ le $$</annotation>\u0000 </semantics></math> pF <span></span><math>\u0000 <semantics>\u0000 <mrow>\u0000 <mo>≤</mo>\u0000 </mrow>\u0000 <annotation>$$ le $$</annotation>\u0000 </semantics></math> 7). The data obtained from each combination was used to fit the van Genuchten-Mualem equation and compared using the RMSE and Akaike statistics. The main results show that using a combination of many methods for the water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves did not necessarily improve the curve fitting. However, adding data points at near saturation (pF close to 0) or from the driest part of the curve (pF <span></span><math>\u0000 <semantics>\u0000 <mrow>\u0000 <mo>≥</mo>\u0000 </mrow>\u0000 <annotation>$$ ge $$</annotation>\u0000 </semantics></math> 4) improved the estimates on both curves. Specifically, for the clay soil, the RMSE for the hydraulic conductivity curve decreased from 0.0372 to 0.0369 cm/d when measurements from near saturation were added. For the sandy loam 2 soil, the RMSE for the water retention curve decreased from 0.039 to 0038 when including data from the driest part of the curve. Among all the soil-water-related parameters tested in this study, the estimates for the water retention content at the permanent wilting point (<i>θ</i>_{1500 kPa}) showed the largest difference among all the combinations of methods, up to 52%. In contrast, the difference in the water content at field capacity (<i>θ</i>_{33 kPa}) estimates was only 3%. This study provides an evaluation and insights to identify the best combination of methods when measuring or parametrizing the soil water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144473090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Response of Soil Detachment Capacity to Land Use Change Mediated by Ecological Engineering in Southwest China","authors":"Qian Jiang,&nbsp;Zicheng Zheng,&nbsp;Shuqin He,&nbsp;Zhenkun Wang,&nbsp;Nana Wang,&nbsp;Longlong An","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70145","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>After two decades of afforestation implementation in purple soil areas, land use has transformed, subsequently altering the erosional environment. The inherent complexity and uncertainty associated with soil properties and plant root characteristics within root–soil systems across different land uses hinder a deep understanding of soil detachment capacity (<i>D</i>_c) changes and their driving factors. Therefore, this study systematically investigated the interrelationships between root traits and soil properties to quantifying land use effects on <i>D</i>_c in purple soil areas and identify key influencing factors. Soil samples from croplands, orchards and woodlands were subjected to scouring experiments in a 4 × 0.35 m hydraulic flume under six shear stresses (ranging from 3.79 to 16.24 Pa). The results showed significant variations in mean <i>D</i>_c across land uses with croplands exhibiting the highest erosion susceptibility (2.64 kg m⁻² s⁻¹), followed by orchards (1.39 kg m⁻² s⁻¹) and woodlands demonstrating the lowest detachment rates (0.06 kg m⁻² s⁻¹). The observed <i>D</i>_c variability was attributed to differential interactions between hydraulic conditions, soil properties and plant root traits across land uses. Among hydraulic parameters, the stream power (<i>w</i>) emerged as the most effective predictor for <i>D</i>_c estimation. Path analysis indicated that soil organic matter (SOM) and root mass density (RMD) were the primary determinants influencing <i>D</i>_c variations. A predictive model was subsequently established incorporating <i>w</i>, SOM and RMD as independent variables, demonstrating high accuracy (<i>R</i>² = 0.92, NSE = 0.91). These provide valuable insights into soil detachment mechanisms under different land uses and offer theoretical support for optimising conservation strategies in the ‘Grain for Green’ program.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144367462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soil Multifunctionality Responses to Warming and Nitrogen Addition and the Mediating Bacteria Vary by Biocrust Type","authors":"Xinhao Li,&nbsp;Chang Tian,&nbsp;Chongfeng Bu,&nbsp;Peng Gao,&nbsp;Shufang Wu,&nbsp;Jin Fan,&nbsp;Wenxin Zhang,&nbsp;Jingwen Pang,&nbsp;Yingxin Wei,&nbsp;Kadambot H. M. Siddique,&nbsp;Han Luo","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70146","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Climate warming and nitrogen deposition—two key drivers of global change—significantly influence soil multifunctionality and microbial community dynamics. Biocrusts are crucial in mitigating these impacts and supporting soil ecological functions and biodiversity. However, how soil multifunctionality and microbial communities within different biocrusts respond to these drivers—and the mechanisms involved—remains unclear. This study explores the effects of warming and nitrogen addition on soil multifunctionality and bacterial communities in cyanobacterial and moss crusts in the Mu Us Sandland. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling, we identified the pathways through which these global change factors influence soil multifunctionality. Our results show that warming and nitrogen addition exert significant yet contrasting effects on soil multifunctionality and bacterial community structure, varying markedly between biocrust types. Specifically, warming enhanced soil multifunctionality in moss crusts but reduced it in cyanobacterial crusts. Combined warming and nitrogen addition significantly decreased bacterial alpha diversity in moss crusts, while cyanobacterial crusts were relatively unresponsive. Moreover, key bacterial phyla—particularly Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes—mediated the effects of warming and nitrogen addition through changes in their relative abundances, exerting negative and positive influences on multifunctionality in cyanobacterial and moss crusts, respectively. This study underscores the capacity of moss crusts to maintain soil multifunctionality under global change conditions and reveals a key mechanism by which shifts in dominant bacterial phyla mediate biocrust responses to environmental stressors.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144323626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effect of Preferential Microplastics Leaching Through Macropores on Vertical Soil Particle Transport","authors":"Ahsan Maqbool,&nbsp;Wang Li,&nbsp;Christine Stumpp,&nbsp;María-Auxiliadora Soriano,&nbsp;José A. Gómez","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70140","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Microplastic particles are an emerging pollutant that can be transported through preferential pathways, such as macropores. Agricultural soils, prone to microplastic contamination, often have macroporosity due to biological activity, natural formation of soil aggregates, desiccation cracks, or no-till practices. However, little is known about the factors controlling microplastic leaching through soil macropores. In this study, artificial soil-like macroporosity (2.5% v/v) was developed in packed soil columns to investigate the effect of macropore size, that is, 2, 3 and 4 mm, on the leaching of microplastics of three sizes, that is, 53–63, 75–90 and 125–150 μm, and the influence of both factors on the vertical mobilisation of soil particles. Under artificial rainfall (30.6 mm h⁻¹ for 30 min), microplastics were preferentially leached, with over 50% of the 75–90 μm and 125–150 μm particles transported, regardless of macropore size. Macropores without microplastics leached a significant amount of soil particles. Macropore characteristics, including pore diameter, number, and surface area, were strongly correlated with vertical soil particle transport. Microplastics increased vertical soil particle transport through macropores by a factor of about 1.6. A conceptual framework was developed to explain the observed mechanisms, emphasising the collisional forces exerted by microplastic particles detaching soil particles. Our results suggest that microplastic flow induced additional stress on macropore walls, intensifying soil particle mobilisation. This study also highlights that macropores (i.e., biopores) might be an underestimated driver of microplastic transport in the vadose zone and their role in intensifying vertical displacement of surface soil to subsurface layers. Given the environmental implications, further research will be needed to study these processes under field conditions.</p>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejss.70140","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144323627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessment of Future Soil Ecosystem Services of a Drained Soil Under Different Climate Change Scenarios","authors":"Maha Chalhoub,&nbsp;Patricia Garnier,&nbsp;Yves Coquet,&nbsp;David Montagne,&nbsp;Philippe C. Baveye","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70144","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In order to prepare for the necessary adaptation to climate change, it would be useful to have some idea of how the services provided by soils to human societies are going to evolve in the future. Unfortunately, since actual measurements of soil services remain elusive in general, modelling efforts needed to predict their future evolution are fraught with very large uncertainties. In one particular situation, however, on the Saclay plateau south of Paris (France), it has been possible to measure five soil services: three provisioning services (supply of water to nearby stream, provision of, respectively, water and nitrogen to wheat crop), two regulating services (flood mitigation, and filtration of pollutant), as well as the amount of wheat produced on site. In the present article, we take advantage of available measurements to parametrize a soil–plant–atmosphere model (STICS), which we combine with three future climate change scenarios to investigate the extent to which soil services will change until the end of the century. Simulation results suggest that the soils at the Saclay site are unexpectedly resilient to climate change, with statistically significant changes occurring in four of the six services only for the most extreme scenario, under which no mitigation effort at all is taking place. Even then, significant changes occur only between 2071 and 2100. The increase in temperature and relative CO₂ pressure in the air leads to a shortening of the plant growth cycle by approximately 2 weeks when comparing the most pessimistic scenario to the most optimistic one. This shortening of the plant cycle means that the end of the growth period no longer overlaps with the summer season, which is typically associated with drought events and heat waves. As a result, the impact of climate change on plant growth is not easily detectable. At this stage, the simulations rest on the assumption that current rainfall patterns will remain the same in the future as they are now. If, as is predicted, rainfall events become more intense and less frequent in the future, the daily precipitation averages currently available will no longer be sufficient, and more accurate, hourly data will be needed to predict the evolution of soil services accurately.</p>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejss.70144","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144323555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Operational Digital Soil Mapping: Achievements, Challenges and Future Strategies to Go Beyond","authors":"Philippe Lagacherie","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70139","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In the first two decades of this century, two projects, GlobalSoilMap and SoilGrids, concretized Digital Soil Mapping's (DSM) move from research to operational activity. These projects have helped provide users with standardised global soil information. Despite their undeniable success, the current GlobalSoilMap and SoilGrids products still have limitations. First, the accuracy of DSM products remains poor—the accuracy challenge. Second, a large number of soil properties are still not addressed by current DSM applications—the relevance challenge. Such limitations greatly hinder the effective use of current DSM products for decision-making, especially when decisions are to be made at the local level. To overcome the above limitations, I argue that the current broad-scale strategies for the operational application of DSM—in the GlobalSoilMap and SoilGrids projects—should be complemented by a new strategy that would focus on more local scales and would be more open to local soil knowledge and the needs of local soil users. Applying such a local strategy raises some important questions—which local scale? How to build a participative DSM? Do we need new DSM models? How do we organise the implementation of the new local DSM strategy? These are briefly discussed in this paper.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144323601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interactive Effects of Biochar and Pesticides on Native Soil Organic Matter Mineralisation","authors":"Christophe Moni,&nbsp;Eva Farkas,&nbsp;Claire Coutris,&nbsp;Hanna Silvennoinen,&nbsp;Anders Bjørnsgaard Aas,&nbsp;Marit Almvik,&nbsp;Liang Wang,&nbsp;Kathinka Lang,&nbsp;Liu Xingang,&nbsp;Marianne Stenrød","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70137","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Biochar and pesticides are likely to be increasingly used in combination in agricultural soils, yet their combined effects on climate change mitigation remain unexplored. This study presents an 8-month incubation experiment with different soil types (silt loam and sandy loam), biochars (corncob and corn stem), and pesticides (with and without a pesticide mixture), during which CO₂ production from soil organic matter (SOM) and biochar mineralisation was monitored using isotopic methods. A comprehensive modelling approach, describing all mineralisation results over the entire incubation with a reduced set of parameters, was employed to isolate the effects of biochar, pesticides, and their interactions across soil types and carbon pools, and captured the dynamic effect of biochar on SOM mineralisation. Over 99.5% of biochars remained inert after 8 months, confirming the role of biochar as a carbon sequestration technology. Biochar addition showed higher SOM stabilisation potential in soil with high clay content compared to soil with low clay content. This suggests that biochar amendment should be considered carefully in clay-depleted soils, as it could result in a loss of native SOM. Corn stem biochar, characterised by high surface area and low C/N ratio, demonstrated higher SOM stabilisation potential than corncob biochar with low surface area and high C/N ratio. Pesticide application reduced SOM mineralisation by 10% regardless of soil and biochar types. Finally, the interaction between corncob biochar and pesticides further reduced SOM mineralisation by 5%, while no interactive effect was observed with corn stem biochar. These findings highlight the importance of considering biochar-pesticide interactions when evaluating the impact of biochar amendments on native SOM stability.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144300259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Can We Derive Climate-Forest-Soil Dependent Proxies for Litter Carbon?","authors":"Mathias Neumann,&nbsp;Edwin Herzberger,&nbsp;Michael Englisch,&nbsp;Hubert Hasenauer","doi":"10.1111/ejss.70135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.70135","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Organic soil layers, including litter, fermentation and humus layers depending on humus form, are a large carbon pool in forests. Soil carbon in organic and mineral layers can be quantified using (i) direct field observations using profiles or cores, (ii) pedo-transfer functions using simple-to-measure proxies for soil carbon, or (iii) biogeochemical modelling considering soil carbon input and output. Despite large amounts of soil data available for researchers, there is little knowledge available on suitable proxies and estimation concepts for carbon in soil layers of predominantly organic origin (here called litter carbon), compared to carbon in mineral soil layers. Here, we test models using litter carbon measurements from Austria. We consider forest and site information as well as litter depth measurements as input data in a machine learning approach for covariate selection and fit multivariate models with remaining significant covariates. We validate the developed models versus independent validation data sets. Our results show a clear relationship between litter carbon and litter depth, with the latter being linked to different humus forms. Models using forest and site parameters in addition to litter depth reach explained variation up to +60%, while models solely using forest and site parameters were clearly inferior in estimating litter carbon (&lt; 30% explained variation). Validation with German, Swedish and Austrian data confirms that litter depth, key forest and site parameters (i.e., air temperature, soil pH, share of broadleaves, soil carbon) are needed for predicting litter carbon with bias &lt; 1 tC/ha and root mean square error &lt; 15 tC/ha. A model estimating litter carbon by first estimating litter bulk density and then multiplying litter bulk density with measured litter depth best explained the observed increase in litter carbon of Austrian forests, with lowest bias, plausible results, and 64% explained variation. Measured litter depth is thus a potent proxy for litter carbon without invasive, time-demanding measurements. We discuss potential research topics (including soil fauna, role of pH in litter decay, using large-scale litter depth surveys such as National Forest Inventories) to explore the still large unexplained variation of litter carbon.</p>","PeriodicalId":12043,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Soil Science","volume":"76 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejss.70135","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144308963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}