Persistence and turnover of soil organic carbon in global drylands

Nature Communications 2026 Open access

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Authors: Hui Wang, Fernando T. Maestre, Nan Lü, Guang Zhao, Y Zhang, Sergio Asensio, De Shorn E. Bramble, Weiliang Chen, Michaela A. Dippold, David J. Eldridge, Juan J. Gaitán, Miguel García‐Gómez
+21 more Beatriz Gozalo, Nicolas Gross, Emilio Guirado, Yoann Le Bagousse‐Pinguet, Jaime Martínez‐Valderrama, Betty Mendoza, Victoria Ochoa, César Plaza, Hugo Sáiz, Marion Schrumpf, Carlos A. Sierra, Andrés Tangarife‐Escobar, Enrique Valencia, Sophie F. von Fromm, Cong Wang, Kai Wang, Yunqiang Wang, Sönke Zaehle, Bojie Fu, Susan Trumbore, Jianbei Huang
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-70623-9
Cited by: 5
References: 82

Abstract

Abstract Reliable predictions of dryland carbon fluxes require understanding the persistence and turnover of soil organic carbon (SOC). We measure radiocarbon to quantify the age of SOC and CO 2 released from soil respiration at 97 dryland sites across six continents. Here we show that bulk SOC contains little C fixed in the past 60 years, while respired CO 2 originates from both bomb-derived recent C and millennia-old C, challenging the idea that old C is chemically or physically protected. Radiocarbon suggests mean ages of ~2100 years for bulk SOC and ~520 years for respired CO 2 , the latter far older than machine-learning (

Fields of Study & Subjects

Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics Ecosystem dynamics and resilience Geology and Paleoclimatology Research

Publication details

Journal / source
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
17
Issue
1
Publication date
22 April 2026
Language
EN