ArticleEcology letters2014
Microbial community dynamics alleviate stoichiometric constraints during litter decay.
Article in Ecology letters, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed.
- Soil microbial growth rate, trophic strategy, and the oligotroph-copiotroph continuum.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Trade-Offs and Driving Factors of Microbial Carbon and Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Typical Forest Ecosystems of Funiu Mountain.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Hydrological Fragmentation Driving Microbial Carbon Necromass Reduction in Columnar Sediments: Evidence from CAZyme Genomic Signatures in Cascade Reservoirs.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Effects of Growth Stages ofBiology · 2026Article
- Relationship between soil microbial necromass carbon and community assembly in the forest-grassland ecotone of northern China.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Soil organic carbon fractions and their associated bacterial and fungal abundance in alpine ecosystems.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Increased Retention of Litter-Derived Organic Carbon With Increasing Initial Carbon Content in Temperate Agricultural Soils.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Co-Inoculation Between Bacteria and Algae from Biological Soil Crusts and Their Effects on the Growth ofMicroorganisms · 2025Article
- Microbial and mineral interactions decouple litter quality from soil organic matter formation.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Soil Properties Regulate Soil Microbial Communities During Forest Succession in a Karst Region of Southwest China.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Emerging multiscale insights on microbial carbon use efficiency in the land carbon cycle.Nature communications · 2024Review
- Bacteria face trade-offs in the decomposition of complex biopolymers.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Whole-soil-profile warming does not change microbial carbon use efficiency in surface and deep soils.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Precipitation Dominates the Allocation Strategy of Above- and Belowground Biomass in Plants on Macro Scales.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The InvasivePlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Dynamics of soil microbial communities involved in carbon cycling along three successional forests in southern China.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Organic amendments with high proportion of heterocyclic compounds promote soil microbiome shift and microbial use efficiency of straw-C.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Biotic Interactions in Soil are Underestimated Drivers of Microbial Carbon Use Efficiency.Current microbiology · 2022Review
- Life and death in the soil microbiome: how ecological processes influence biogeochemistry.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Under the current paradigm, organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling rates are a function of the imbalance between substrate and microbial biomass stoichiometry. Challenging this view, we demonstrate that in an individual-based model, microbial community dynamics alter relative C and N limitation during litter decomposition, leading to a system behaviour not predictable from stoichiometric theory alone. Rather, the dynamics of interacting functional groups lead to an adaptation at the community level, which accelerates nitrogen recycling in litter with high initial C : N ratios and thus alleviates microbial N limitation. This mechanism allows microbial decomposers to overcome large imbalances between resource and biomass stoichiometry without the need to decrease carbon use efficiency (CUE), which is in contrast to predictions of traditional stoichiometric mass balance equations. We conclude that identifying and implementing microbial community-driven mechanisms in biogeochemical models are necessary for accurately predicting terrestrial C fluxes in response to changing environmental conditions.
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Registered trials
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