Soil organic matter dynamics in grassland soils under elevated CO2: Insights from long-term incubations and stable isotopes

Elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels generally stimulate carbon (C) uptake by plants, but the fate of this additional C largely remains unknown. This uncertainty is due in part to the difficulty in detecting small changes in soil carbon pools. We conducted a series of long-term (170-330 days) laboratory incubation experiments to examine changes in soil organic matter pool sizes and turnover rates in soil collected from an open-top chamber (OTC) elevated CO2 study in Colorado shortgrass steppe. We measured concentration and isotopic composition of respired CO2 and applied a two-pool exponential decay model to estimate pool sizes and turnover rates of active and slow C pools. The active and slow C pools of surface soils (5-10 cm depth) were increased by elevated CO2, but turnover rates of these pools were not consistently altered. These findings indicate a potential for C accumulation in near-surface soil C pools under elevated CO2. Stable isotopes provided evidence that elevated CO2 did not alter the decomposition rate of new C inputs. Temporal variations in measured δ13C of respired CO2 during incubation probably resulted mainly from the decomposition of changing mixtures of fresh residue and older organic matter. Lignin decomposition may have contributed to declining δ13C values late in the experiments. Isotopic dynamics during decomposition should be taken into account when interpreting δ13C measurements of soil respiration. Our study provides new understanding of soil C dynamics under elevated CO2 through the use of stable C isotope measurements during microbial organic matter mineralization.