We are no longer updating the Research Digest. All content remains.
The Permaculture Research Digest has summaries of newly published permaculture-related research. All items are
hyper-linked to the original publication.
The 'January 2013' archive contains 60 items published in 2012.
Items marked with a # have restricted public access, although abstracts are freely available.
Permaculture Research Digest
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Tuesday 29 October 2019
Polycultures store more soil carbon (journal)
Microbial spatial footprint as a driver of soil carbon stabilization
Increasing the potential of soil to store carbon (C) is an acknowledged strategy for capturing atmospheric CO2. Yet experimental evidence often fails to support anticipated C gains. Here, authors demonstrate for the first time that plant-stimulated soil pore formation appears to be a major, hitherto unrecognized, determinant of whether new C inputs are stored or lost. Unlike monocultures, diverse plant communities favor the development of 30–150 µm pores. Such pores are the micro-environments associated with higher enzyme activities, and greater abundance of such pores translates into a greater spatial footprint that microorganisms make on the soil and consequently soil C storage capacity.
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