A tale of two holy grails: from plant traits to soil organic matter pathways

KOWALJOW, E.; NALDINI, B.; PÉREZ HARGUINDEGUY, N.; CONTI, G.; POCA, M.; VAIERETTI, M.V.; PESTONI, S.

Londres

Congreso; Festival of Ecology; 2020

British Ecological Society

Identifying plant functional traits that are informative on vegetation responses to environmental changes and on vegetation effects on ecosystem functioning has been a Holy Grail to ecology. While the influence of litter quality and decomposability on carbon and nutrient release in the short term is fairly clear, its relationship with soil organic matter (SOM) formation and protection is still under debate. This is, in part, because understanding what SOM really is, how it is formed, and when it can be considered stabilised, has been a Holy Grail for biogeochemistry; but also because functional ecology and SOM dynamics approaches have been disconnected until recently. Here, we review how decomposition has been dealt with in functional ecology, how the knowledge on the mechanisms of SOM formation has evolved, how and when those areas of knowledge had found points of contact, and where the research challenges are heading.