On the role of soil water retention characteristic on aerobic microbial respiration

Teamrat A. Ghezzehei; Benjamin Sulman; Chelsea L. Arnold; Nathaniel A. Bogie; Asmeret Asefaw Berhe

doi:10.5194/bg-16-1187-2019

On the role of soil water retention characteristic on aerobic microbial respiration

Teamrat A. Ghezzehei, Benjamin Sulman, Chelsea L. Arnold, Nathaniel A. Bogie, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe

Plant-Soil Interactions

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

61 Scopus citations

Abstract

Soil water status is one of the most important environmental factors that control microbial activity and rate of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition. Its effect can be partitioned into effect of water energy status (water potential) on cellular activity, effect of water volume on cellular motility, and aqueous diffusion of substrate and nutrients, as well as the effect of air content and gas-diffusion pathways on concentration of dissolved oxygen. However, moisture functions widely used in SOM decomposition models are often based on empirical functions rather than robust physical foundations that account for these disparate impacts of soil water. The contributions of soil water content and water potential vary from soil to soil according to the soil water characteristic (SWC), which in turn is strongly dependent on soil texture and structure. The overall goal of this study is to introduce a physically based modeling framework of aerobic microbial respiration that incorporates the role of SWC under arbitrary soil moisture status. The model was tested by comparing it with published datasets of SOM decomposition under laboratory conditions.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1187-1209
Number of pages	23
Journal	Biogeosciences
Volume	16
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-1187-2019
State	Published - Mar 21 2019

Funding

Acknowledgements. Two rounds of constructive criticisms and recommendations by Ali Ebrahimi, Fernando Moyano, and three anonymous reviewers have significantly improved the final quality of this paper. Partial funding by the US National Science Foundation, Division of Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, and Land Use Dynamics program (EAR-1324919) is gratefully acknowledged. Benjamin Sulman was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

Funders	Funder number
Office of Biological and Environmental Research
US Department of Energy
National Science Foundation
Directorate for Geosciences	1324919
Division of Earth Sciences	EAR-1324919
Office of Science

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abstract = "Soil water status is one of the most important environmental factors that control microbial activity and rate of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition. Its effect can be partitioned into effect of water energy status (water potential) on cellular activity, effect of water volume on cellular motility, and aqueous diffusion of substrate and nutrients, as well as the effect of air content and gas-diffusion pathways on concentration of dissolved oxygen. However, moisture functions widely used in SOM decomposition models are often based on empirical functions rather than robust physical foundations that account for these disparate impacts of soil water. The contributions of soil water content and water potential vary from soil to soil according to the soil water characteristic (SWC), which in turn is strongly dependent on soil texture and structure. The overall goal of this study is to introduce a physically based modeling framework of aerobic microbial respiration that incorporates the role of SWC under arbitrary soil moisture status. The model was tested by comparing it with published datasets of SOM decomposition under laboratory conditions.",

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On the role of soil water retention characteristic on aerobic microbial respiration

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