ReviewGlobal change biology2025
Soil Carbon Saturation: What Do We Really Know?
Review in Global change biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mineral Stabilization Slows Losses of Peatland Carbon Following Long-Term Drainage for Agriculture.Global change biology · 2026Article
- The impact of fertilization on the health of paddy soil: pathways and prospects for fertility regulation based on microbial communities.Crop health · 2026Review
- Vegetation-Mediated Soil Organic Carbon Differentiation and Carbon Sequestration Strategies in a Typical Wetland of the North China Plain.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Continental-Scale Evidence of Farm Management Impacts on Soil Carbon.Global change biology · 2026Article
- The Impact of Sodium Hexametaphosphate Use in Soil Fractionation Protocols on Downstream Mineral Analyses.ACS omega · 2026Article
- Early evidence for the benefits of biochar in organic regenerative agriculture.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Unravelling depth-dependent pedoclimatic controls on measurable soil organic carbon fractions across climatic gradients in Australian agricultural soils.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Contrasting roles of fungal necromass and mineral preservation in influencing mineral-associated organic carbon across and within elevation bands.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- The Fraction of Carbon in Soil Organic Matter as a National-Scale Soil Process Indicator.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Storage Potential of Soil Functional Carbon Fractions in the World's Largest Plantations.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Activation Energy of Organic Matter Decomposition in Soil and Consequences of Global Warming.Global change biology · 2025Article
- A bottom-up perspective on how fire changes ecosystem biogeochemistry via plant-soil interactions.Plant and soil · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Managing soils to increase organic carbon storage presents a potential opportunity to mitigate and adapt to global change challenges, while providing numerous co-benefits and ecosystem services. However, soils differ widely in their potential for carbon sequestration, and knowledge of biophysical limits to carbon accumulation may aid in informing priority regions. Consequently, there is great interest in assessing whether soils exhibit a maximum capacity for storing organic carbon, particularly within organo-mineral associations given the finite nature of reactive minerals in a soil. While the concept of soil carbon saturation has existed for over 25 years, recent studies have argued for and against its importance. Here, we summarize the conceptual understanding of soil carbon saturation at both micro- and macro-scales, define key terminology, and address common concerns and misconceptions. We review methods used to quantify soil carbon saturation, highlighting the theory and potential caveats of each approach. Critically, we explore the utility of the principles of soil carbon saturation for informing carbon accumulation, vulnerability to loss, and representations in process-based models. We highlight key knowledge gaps and propose next steps for furthering our mechanistic understanding of soil carbon saturation and its implications for soil management.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.