Alex Cueva leads paper on the importance of negative soil CO2 fluxes at LEO and beyond

At the Landscape Evolution Observatory in Biosphere 2, weathering is the main process controlling soil CO₂ fluxes, and in the net, drives CO₂ into the soils. In most soils CO₂ is emitted due to the overwhelming role of respiration by microbes, macrofauna, and roots on the soil flux of CO₂. Alex surveyed the literature and found that negative soil CO₂ fluxes are not uncommon in arid regions, and are likely under-reported if interpreted as measurement errors. The presence of both CO₂-consuming and CO₂-producing processes in soils complicates equating CO₂ emissions with microbial and/or root respiration and activity. In this paper, Alex investigates abiotic and biotic drivers of soil CO₂ fluxes at the Landscape Evolution Observatory, a system that is both wonderfully simple and fantastically complex. As is now the norm for ecosystems, soil-atmosphere interactions should be considered through a lens of net soil exchange to recognize interacting trace gas processes and improve our mechanistic understanding thereof.

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A. Cueva, T. H. M. Volkmann, J. van Haren, P. Troch, and L. K. Meredith. (2019) Reconciling Negative Soil CO₂ Fluxes: Insights from a Large-Scale Experimental Hillslope. Soil Systems, 3(1):10, doi:10.3390/soilsystems3010010. Document online. PDF