Boosting carbon stability in forest soils: the role of soil biota in climate-smart management

Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations call for urgent action to develop strategies for negative emissions, including nature-based solutions. The role of forests in climate change mitigation is widely recognized as forests can store vast amounts of carbon both above- and belowground. However, many forest ecosystems are affected by environmental pressures, and are at risk of becoming sources of CO2. As a consequence, EU countries are setting up large networks to monitor forest soil carbon stocks and assess potential losses and gains. This effort is crucial in understanding emissions and sequestration in forests, but only monitoring stocks is of little help in determining what forests are of risk of turning from a sink into a source, nor do they provide avenues for management to enhance carbon stabilization in forests in the future. There is a growing body of literature that pinpoints soil biota as the missing link between forest management and carbon stabilization. In this project, I aim to identify changes in carbon stability and to disentangle the drivers of such changes, while specifically taking into account the role of soil biota relative to edaphic factors, climate change and management, in order to ultimately optimize climate-smart-management and boost C stability.