Mammal and tree diversity accumulate different types of soil organic matter in the northern Amazon

María Losada; Antonio M Martínez Cortizas; Kirsten M Silvius; Sara Varela; Ted K Raab; Jose M V Fragoso; Mar Sobral

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106088

Mammal and tree diversity accumulate different types of soil organic matter in the northern Amazon

iScience. 2023 Jan 30;26(3):106088. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106088. eCollection 2023 Mar 17.

Authors

María Losada¹, Antonio M Martínez Cortizas^{1

2}, Kirsten M Silvius³, Sara Varela⁴, Ted K Raab⁵, Jose M V Fragoso^{6

7}, Mar Sobral¹

Affiliations

¹ CRETUS - EcoPast (GI-1553), Departmento de Edafoloxía e Química Agrícola, Facultade de Bioloxía, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
² Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
³ Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
⁴ MAPAS Lab, Departamento de Ecoloxía e Bioloxía Animal, Universidade de Vigo, 36310 Vigo, Spain.
⁵ Carnegie Institution for Science, Deparment of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
⁶ Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasılia, Brasılia, DF 70910-900, Brazil.
⁷ Institute of Biodiversity Science and Sustainability, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA.

Abstract

Diversity of plants and animals influence soil carbon through their contributions to soil organic matter (SOM). However, we do not know whether mammal and tree communities affect SOM composition in the same manner. This question is relevant because not all forms of carbon are equally resistant to mineralization by microbes and thus, relevant to carbon storage. We analyzed the elemental and molecular composition of 401 soil samples, with relation to the species richness of 83 mammal and tree communities at a landscape scale across 4.8 million hectares in the northern Amazon. We found opposite effects of mammal and tree richness over SOM composition. Mammal diversity is related to SOM rich in nitrogen, sulfur and iron whereas tree diversity is related to SOM rich in aliphatic and carbonyl compounds. These results help us to better understand the role of biodiversity in the carbon cycle and its implications for climate change mitigation.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Ecology; Environmental science.