Soil Carbon Stability in Forests in Response to Global Change Scenarios

Forest soils comprise the largest carbon stock in terrestrial ecosystems. Consequently, stabilization of soil carbon forest ecosystem plays a crucial role in global carbon cycling and sequestration. Various views, concepts, and hypotheses on soil carbon stabilization have been developed, but our quantitative understanding of stabilization processes is still largely unclear as soils represent a ‘black box’. Under the increasing pressure of global change, it is particularly essential to explore the direction and magnitude of changes in forest soil carbon, to determine the underlying mechanisms and their sensitivity to changing environment.

This Research Topic aims to provide an overview of the current concepts and knowledge on the effects of various global change scenarios on forest soil carbon stabilization, and to specifically elucidate the magnitude of crucial processes and the underlying mechanisms (physical, chemical and/or biotic) that drive soil carbon stabilization.

We welcome novel contributions on soil carbon stability under major trajectories of global change, encompassing climate warming, drought, land use change, and nitrogen deposition. We encourage studies from a wide range of approaches including field and laboratory experiments, modelling, and synthesis in the form of reviews, mini reviews, meta-analyses, perspectives, and original research.