Using Soil Food Webs to Predict Soil Carbon Storage Potential

我的研究主要集中在以土壤系统为模型的生物多样性和生态系统功能。土壤是一种不可再生资源，包含了世界上大部分的生物多样性，并具有养分循环和碳储存等重要功能。土壤碳储量对生态系统健康和全球气候调节至关重要。超过90%的地上陆地碳（植物和动物）以死有机物的形式进入土壤系统。这些有机物被土壤食物网的成员（无脊椎动物和微生物）用作基础资源，最终以有机物的形式储存在土壤中，被溶解并以溶解有机碳的形式输出到地表水中，或者以二氧化碳的形式重新排放回大气中。土壤生物多样性和土壤食物网的结构调节和支配着土壤中碳的命运，并决定碳是被储存（隔离）还是被释放回大气。土壤生物多样性的变化将改变生态系统层面的碳过程，但气候变化将如何影响土壤食物网结构和生物多样性，从而影响土壤碳储存潜力，在很大程度上是未知的。我使用大规模的野外观测，实验室，温室和田间规模的实验操作，以及理论方法的结合方法来了解全球环境变化将如何影响土壤的生物多样性和功能。我的研究目标是将土壤食物网结构与碳储量和通量的机制联系起来，并了解全球变化下土壤生物多样性的决定因素。在未来5年，我将：1)将变暖引起的植物组成变化与土壤食物网结构和功能的变化联系起来；2)利用参数化泥炭地土壤食物网模型量化碳通量；3)计算全球变化下的能量收支，跟踪碳途径，预测碳储存潜力。现在迫切需要了解土壤过程，包括食物网的相互作用，并将其纳入碳储存模型，我有能力在对土壤食物网的科学理解方面取得巨大进展，这将有助于预测泥炭地系统的碳储存

My research broadly focuses on biodiversity and ecosystem function using soil systems as models. Soils are a non-renewable resource that contain the majority of the world's biodiversity and perform important functions such as nutrient cycling and carbon storage. Soil carbon storage is of paramount importance for ecosystem health and global climate regulation. Over 90% of aboveground terrestrial carbon (plants and animals) enters the soil system as dead organic matter. This organic matter is used by members of the soil food web (invertebrates and microorganisms) as a basal resource, and is ultimately stored in the soil as organic matter, is dissolved and exported to surface waters as dissolved organic carbon, or is re-emitted back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Soil biodiversity and the structure of soil food webs regulate and govern the fate of carbon in soils, and determine whether carbon will be stored (sequestered) or released back to the atmosphere. Changes in soil biodiversity will alter ecosystem-level carbon processes, yet it is largely unknown how climate change will affect soil food web structure and biodiversity, and hence soil carbon storage potential. I use a combined approach of large-scale field observations, laboratory, greenhouse and field-scale experimental manipulations, and theoretical approaches to understand how global environmental changes will impact soil biodiversity and function. The objectives of my research are to mechanistically link soil food web structure to carbon storage and flux, as well as to understand the determinants of soil biodiversity under global change. In the next five years, I will: 1) link warming-induced changes in plant composition to alterations in the soil food web structure and function, 2) quantify carbon flux using parameterized peatland soil food web models, and in doing so 3) calculate energy budgets, track carbon pathways, and predict carbon storage potential under global change. There is an urgent need to understand and incorporate soil processes, including food web interactions, into carbon storage models and I have the capacity to make dramatic advances in the scientific understand of soil food webs that will allow predictions of carbon storage in peatland systems.**