Temperature responsiveness of soil carbon fractions, microbes, extracellular enzymes and CO₂ emission: mitigating role of texture

The interaction of warming and soil texture on responsiveness of the key soil processes i.e. organic carbon (C) fractions, soil microbes, extracellular enzymes and CO2 emissions remains largely unknown. Global warming raises the relevant question of how different soil processes will respond in near future, and what will be the likely regulatory role of texture? To bridge this gap, this work applied the laboratory incubation method to investigate the effects of temperature changes (10–50 °C) on dynamics of labile, recalcitrant and stable C fractions, soil microbes, microbial biomass, activities of extracellular enzymes and CO2 emissions in sandy and clayey textured soils. The role of texture (sandy and clayey) in the mitigation of temperature effect was also investigated. The results revealed that the temperature sensitivity of C fractions and extracellular enzymes was in the order recalcitrant C fractions > stable C fractions > labile C fractions and oxidative enzymes > hydrolytic enzymes. While temperature sensitivity of soil microbes and biomass was in the order bacteria > actinomycetes > fungi ≈ microbial biomass C (MBC) > microbial biomass N (MBN) > microbial biomass N (MBP). Conversely, the temperature effect and sensitivity of all key soil processes including CO2 emissions were significantly (P < 0.05) higher in sandy than clayey textured soil. Results confirmed that under the scenario of global warming and climate change, soils which are sandy in nature are more susceptible to temperature increase and prone to become the CO2-C sources. It was revealed that clayey texture played an important role in mitigating and easing off the undue temperature influence, hence, the sensitivity of key soil processes.