Global Change Impacts on the Forest Soil Microbial Community

Dear Colleagues, 

The world’s forests influence global climate change through a range of direct and indirect physical, chemical, and biological pathways, whereas the interactions among those complex pathways could potentially dampen or amplify global climate change. Soils store three to four times as much C as the atmosphere and represent the largest natural source of CO₂. Therefore, even small changes in soil C stock could substantially alter future climate change. However, the microbial and extracellular enzyme mediated soil organic C decomposition is still the research area with active debates, limiting our understanding of forest soil C dynamics. Moreover, the current accelerated global climate change and intensified anthropogenic disturbance are anticipated to have cascading but understudied impacts on soil microbial community composition, making the topic even more complicated. 

This Special Issue provides a platform to highlight new research on how changes in soil microbial community composition and functional gene diversity affect soil C dynamics. For this Special Issue, we invite submissions that address all aspects related to microbial-mediated soil organic C decomposition, as well as how they respond to climate change and forest managements. For example, (1) microbial-mediated ecosystem respiration, soil respiration, and their components (autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration) to climate change and forest managements; (2) microbial and extracellular enzyme-mediated soil organic matter formation and decomposition, including the decomposition of different pools of litter and soil organic matter; and (3) contributions of litter, roots and necromass to soil C formation. Various research methodologies are highly welcomed in this Special Issue, for example, field observation, lab incubation, in situ studies, modeling, data mining, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews. The overarching objectives are to use the knowledge from this Special Issue in forest management and conservation, as well as to make forest ecosystems more resilient, resource-efficient, and sustainable. We look forward to reading your submissions. 

Dr. Ji Chen
Dr. Jianfen Guo
Guest Editors

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