ArticleScience China. Life sciences2025
Nitrogen addition promotes soil carbon accumulation globally.
Article in Science China. Life sciences, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Contrasting Effects of Nitrogen Input on Soil Carbon Pools in Arid and Humid Climates.Global change biology · 2026Pooled it
- Critical thresholds for co-benefits of carbon accumulation and biodiversity conservation under global nitrogen enrichment.Nature communications · 2026Pooled it
- Microbial Transcriptional and Metabolic Shifts Mediate Rhizosphere Organic Carbon Accumulation in Alpine Grasslands Following Six Years of Continuous Nitrogen Addition.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- The Fragile Sink: Reconceptualizing Soil Carbon Stabilization and Its Vulnerability Under Global Change.Global change biology · 2026Review
- Nitrogen fertilization increases soil organic carbon through distinct pathways in contrasting cropland soils.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- Microbial community structure and function and their linkages with methane production in sediments of thermokarst lakes on the Tibetan Plateau.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- Root Exudates Shape Soil Organic Carbon Stabilization by Controlling Microbial Necromass Formation Under Long-Term Nitrogen Fertilization.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Precipitation reduction mitigates the negative impact of nitrogen deposition on soil nitrogen fixation in subtropical Chinese fir plantations.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- Optimizing nutrient stoichiometry for enhanced carbon sequestration in agricultural soils.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Short-Term Nitrogen Enrichment Reshapes Carbon Allocation and Enhances Synergistic Ecosystem Services in Semi-Arid Sandy Grasslands in China.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Elevation-induced changes in soil sulfur availability in tea plantations.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Soil is the largest carbon (C) reservoir in terrestrial ecosystems and plays a crucial role in regulating the global C cycle and climate change. Increasing nitrogen (N) deposition has been widely considered as a critical factor affecting soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, but its effect on SOC components with different stability remains unclear. Here, we analyzed extensive empirical data from 304 sites worldwide to investigate how SOC and its components respond to N addition. Our analysis showed that N addition led to a significant increase in bulk SOC (6.7%), with greater increases in croplands (10.6%) and forests (6.0%) compared to grasslands (2.1%). Regarding SOC components, N addition promoted the accumulation of plant-derived C (9.7%-28.5%) over microbial-derived C (0.2%), as well as labile (5.7%) over recalcitrant components (-1.2%), resulting in a shift towards increased accumulation of plant-derived labile C. Consistently, N addition led to a greater increase in particulate organic C (11.9%) than mineral-associated organic C (3.6%), suggesting that N addition promotes C accumulation across all pools, with more increase in unstable than stable pools. The responses of SOC and its components were best predicted by the N addition rate and net primary productivity. Overall, our findings suggest that N enrichment could promote the accumulation of plant-derived and non-mineral associated C and a subsequent decrease in the overall stability of soil C pool, which underscores the importance of considering the effects of N enrichment on SOC components for a better understanding of C dynamics in soils.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.