Plant communities as drivers of soil respiration: pathways, mechanisms, and significance for global change

摘要

Understanding the impacts of plant community characteristics on soil carbon dioxide efflux (R) is a key pre-requisite for accurate prediction of the future carbon (C) bal-ance of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change. How-ever, developing a mechanistic understanding of the determi-nants of R is complicated by the presence of multiple dif-ferent sources of respiratory C within soil – such as soil mi-crobes, plant roots and their mycorrhizal symbionts – each with their distinct dynamics and drivers. In this review, we synthesize relevant information from a wide spectrum of sources to evaluate the current state of knowledge about plant community effects on R, examine how this information is in-corporated into global climate models, and highlight priori-ties for future research. Despite often large variation amongst studies and methods, several general trends emerge.