From Microbes to the Earth System – Upscaling Microbial Community Dynamics to Macro-scale Soil Carbon Models

Executive Summary

The goal of the proposed research is to better understand how the dynamics of soil microbial communities modulate macro-scale soil carbon cycling, specifically in response to changes in carbon input by plants. By integrating experimental data with mechanistic models, the proposed work will enhance our ability to predict how climate change and land-use scenarios impact soil sustainability and carbon sequestration in terrestrial carbon reservoirs, offering insight regarding effective mitigation actions.

Publications, Presentations, and Patents

Georgiou, Katerina, Robert B. Jackson, Olga Vinduskova, Rose Z. Abramoff, Anders Ahlstrom, Wenting Feng, Jennifer W. Harden, Adam F. A. Pellegrini, H. Wayne Polley, Jennifer L. Soong, William J. Riley, Margaret S. Torn. 2022. “Global Stocks and Capacity of Mineral-Associated Soil Organic Carbon.” Nature Communications 13, 3797. LLNL-JRNL-825882.

Pellegrini Adam F. A., Jennifer Harden, Katerina Georgiou, Kyle S. Hemes, Avni Malhotra, Connor J. Nolan, and Robert B. Jackson. 2022. "Fire Effects on the Persistence of Soil Organic Matter and Long-Term Carbon Storage.” Nature Geoscience 15, 5-13. LLNL-JRNL-825832.

Sokol, Noah, Emily D. Whalen, Andrea Jilling, Cynthia Kallenbach, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, and Katerina Georgiou. 2022. “Global Distribution, Formation, and Fate of Mineral-Associated Soil Organic Matter under a Changing Climate: A Trait-Based Perspective.” Functional Ecology 36(6):1411-1429. LLNL-JRNL-829275.

Abramoff, Rose Z., Bertrand Guenet, Haicheng Zhang, Katerina Georgiou, Xiaofeng Xu, Raphael A. Viscara Rossel, Wenping Yuan, and Philippe Ciais. 2022. “Site-level Simulations of Measurable Soil Fractions with Millennial Version 2.” Soil Biology & Biochemistry 164, 108466. LLNL-JRNL-825877.

Pierson, Derek, Kathleen A. Lohse, William R. Wieder, Nicholas R. Patton, Jeremy Facer, Marie-Anne de Graaff, Katerina Georgiou, Mark S. Seyfried, Gerald Flerchinger, and Ryan Will. 2022. “Optimizing Process-Based Models to Predict Current and Future Soil Organic Carbon Stocks at High-Resolution. ” Scientific Reports 12, 10824. LLNL-JRNL- 835092.

Georgiou, Katerina, Avni Malhotra, William W. Wieder, Jaqueline H. Ennis, Melannie D. Hartman, Benjamin N. Sulman, and Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, et al. 2021. “Divergent Controls of Soil Organic Carbon Between Observations and Process-Based Models.” Biogeochemistry 156, 5-17. LLNL-JRNL-823855.

Pellegrini, Adam F. A., Anthony C. Caprio, Katerina Georgiou, Colin Finnegan, Sarah E. Hobbie, Jeffery A. Hatten, and Robert B. Jackson. 2021. “Low‐Intensity Frequent Fires in Coniferous Forests Transform Soil Organic Matter in Ways that may Offset Ecosystem Carbon Losses.” Global Change Biology 27(16):3810-3823. LLNL-JRNL-821940.

Kristensen, Jeppe A., Jens-Christian Svenning, Katerina Georgiou, and Yadvinder Malhi. 2021.“Can Large Herbivores Stabilize Ecosystem Carbon?” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 27(2):117-128. LLNL-JRNL-825879.

Georgiou, Katerina.“Soil Carbon Saturation: Mineralogical Capacity and Biotic Controls.” ISCN-AGU Webinar Series, Invited Oral Presentation. 2022. LLNL-PRES-832913.

Georgiou, Katerina et al. “Global Distribution and Climatological Temperature Sensitivity of Soil Organic Matter Fractions in Observations and Models.” EGU General Assembly, Invited Oral Presentation. 2022. LLNL-PRES-830060.

Georgiou, Katerina, et al. “Looking under the Hood: Benchmarking Soil Organic Matter Pool Distributions at the Global-scale.” AGU Fall Meeting, Oral Presentation. 2021. LLNL-PRES-830060.

Georgiou, Katerina et al. “Biome- to Global-scale Controls on Soil Carbon Storage: Divergence between Observations and Process-based Models.” AGU Fall Meeting, Virtual, Oral Presentation. 2020. LLNL-PRES- 817702.

Georgiou, Katerina.“Machine Learning Emulators Reveal Divergence in Soil Carbon Controls Between Observations and Process-based Models.” CLAND Workshop on Machine Learning for Climate, Virtual, Invited Oral Presentation. 2020. LLNL-PRES- 817702.