Stoichiometry of microbial carbon use efficiency in soils

Abstract The carbon use efficiency ( CUE ) of microbial communities partitions the flow of C from primary producers to the atmosphere, decomposer food webs, and soil C stores. CUE , usually defined as the ratio of growth to assimilation, is a critical parameter in ecosystem models, but is seldom measured directly in soils because of the methodological difficulty of measuring in situ rates of microbial growth and respiration. Alternatively, CUE can be estimated indirectly from the elemental stoichiometry of organic matter and microbial biomass, and the ratios of C to nutrient‐acquiring ecoenzymatic activities. We used this approach to estimate and compare microbial CUE in >2000 soils from a broad range of…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy