Interactive effects of warming and drought on soil organic carbon sequestration and methane uptake in straw and biochar amended soils: Mechanisms and global implications

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Lin, Jitong, Liang, Guopeng, Hernández, Marcela, Xu, Zhiyu, Xue, Yinghao, Sun, Renhua, Sun, Yuanfeng, Dai, Lulu, Lou, Yanhong, Feng, Haojie, Wang, Hui, Yang, Quangang, Di, Hongjie, Pan, Hong and Zhuge, Yuping (2025) Interactive effects of warming and drought on soil organic carbon sequestration and methane uptake in straw and biochar amended soils: Mechanisms and global implications. Chemical Engineering Journal, 519. ISSN 1385-8947

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Abstract

The interactive effects of warming and drought on soil carbon-methane feedback in straw- versus biochar-amended agricultural systems need more comprehensive quantification, despite their critical implications for climate-smart soil management. By integrating controlled incubation experiments with a global meta-analysis (105 observations), we revealed that drought suppressed CH4 uptake by 58.9% in carbon-amended soils through synergistic depletion of methanotrophic functional capacity (pmoA gene abundance) and microbial biomass carbon, while attenuating thermal sensitivity of methane uptake. Crucially, warming triggered opposing methane sink responses: it stimulated uptake in straw-amended soils (by 15.4%, CI: −0.348 to 0.656), yet collapsed methanotrophy in biochar systems (by −78.4%, CI: −1.167 to −0.401), mechanistically linked to thermal disruption of methanotroph community integrity and pmoA gene expression. Structural equation modeling further exposed biochar-induced vulnerability, where warming directly suppressed pmoA abundance (r = −0.691, p < 0.001), overriding its carbon stabilization benefits. Globally synthesized data unveiled paradoxical soil organic carbon dynamics under warming—short-term losses vs. long-term accruals—highlighting the imperative for decade-scale in situ validations. Our findings established an amendment-specific biogeochemical framework, demonstrating that straw and biochar follow divergent carbon-climate trajectories: the former enhanced methane sink resilience but risked soil organic carbon instability, while the latter traded carbon persistence for methanotrophic functional collapse. This work redefined climate-smart amendment strategies by embedding microbial metabolic gatekeeping into Earth system models, providing actionable pathways for sustainable agroecosystem management under accelerating climate extremes.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data availability: Authors can confirm that all relevant data are included in the article. Funding information: This work was funded by Natural Science Foundation of China (42477321 and 42007076), Agriculture Research System of China of MOF and MARA (CARS-12), Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2023MD006), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020T130387), Young Talent of Lifting engineering for Science and Technology in Shandong China.
Uncontrolled Keywords: ch uptake,climate warming,global-scale meta-analyses,soc sequestration,straw,straw-derived biochar,chemical engineering(all),chemistry(all),industrial and manufacturing engineering,environmental chemistry ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1500
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Molecular Microbiology
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Wolfson Centre for Advanced Environmental Microbiology
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 02 Sep 2025 11:30
Last Modified: 05 Sep 2025 08:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100255
DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2025.164817

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