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Background and aims <p>Climate change can induce changes in carbon derived from plants and microbes across various ecosystems, especially in sensitive environments like alpine grasslands. However, the relative contributions of these sources and the factors influencing their accumulation remain unclear.</p> Methods <p>We distinguished microbial and plant carbon sources using amino sugars and lignin phenols, and explored their contributions to soil organic carbon (SOC) across different altitudes (2400–3000&#xa0;m) and soil depths (0–60&#xa0;cm) in the Bayinbuluke grassland.</p> Results <p>With the increase of altitudes, SOC, plant-necromass carbon (PNC), and microbial-necromass carbon (MNC) increased by 56.7%, 61.7%, and 27.6%, respectively. The contributions of PNC and MNC to SOC also followed a unimodal trend with altitude. At different altitudes and soil layers, PNC contributed more to SOC (8.9%–50.5%) than MNC (6.6%–31.4%), with fungal-necromass carbon (FNC) (4.7%–25.2%) contributing more than bacterial-necromass carbon (BNC) (1.1%–6.3%). Although SOC, PNC, and MNC decreased significantly with soil depth (<i>P</i> &lt; 0.05), the contributions of PNC and MNC to SOC increased gradually. Partial least squares modeling (PLS-PM) results suggested that soil nutrients played a key role in PNC and MNC accumulation, with altitude indirectly affecting their accumulation through climate (precipitation and temperature) and nutrient regulation. </p> Conclusion <p>These results improve our understanding of how altitude and soil depth influence PNC and MNC in alpine grassland ecosystems, offering new insights into SOC sequestration in such environments.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>

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Plant-necromass carbon is an important source of soil organic carbon in alpine grassland of Xinjiang

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月7日

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  • Wen Cao,
  • Qiong Wu,
  • Yudong Chen,
  • Yuehan Liu,
  • Eryang Li,
  • Guanghui Lv

摘要

Background and aims

Climate change can induce changes in carbon derived from plants and microbes across various ecosystems, especially in sensitive environments like alpine grasslands. However, the relative contributions of these sources and the factors influencing their accumulation remain unclear.

Methods

We distinguished microbial and plant carbon sources using amino sugars and lignin phenols, and explored their contributions to soil organic carbon (SOC) across different altitudes (2400–3000 m) and soil depths (0–60 cm) in the Bayinbuluke grassland.

Results

With the increase of altitudes, SOC, plant-necromass carbon (PNC), and microbial-necromass carbon (MNC) increased by 56.7%, 61.7%, and 27.6%, respectively. The contributions of PNC and MNC to SOC also followed a unimodal trend with altitude. At different altitudes and soil layers, PNC contributed more to SOC (8.9%–50.5%) than MNC (6.6%–31.4%), with fungal-necromass carbon (FNC) (4.7%–25.2%) contributing more than bacterial-necromass carbon (BNC) (1.1%–6.3%). Although SOC, PNC, and MNC decreased significantly with soil depth (P < 0.05), the contributions of PNC and MNC to SOC increased gradually. Partial least squares modeling (PLS-PM) results suggested that soil nutrients played a key role in PNC and MNC accumulation, with altitude indirectly affecting their accumulation through climate (precipitation and temperature) and nutrient regulation.

Conclusion

These results improve our understanding of how altitude and soil depth influence PNC and MNC in alpine grassland ecosystems, offering new insights into SOC sequestration in such environments.

Graphical Abstract