The Contribution of Soil Structure to Climate Regulation and Other Regulating Ecosystem Services.

Soils are the largest terrestrial pool of organic carbon and therefore play and important role in the global carbon cycle. In the United Kingdom it has been estimated that a 1% change in soil carbon is equivalent to the UK’s annual emissions from fossil fuels. Climate change has been predicted to increase the likelihood of soil warming and drought. Therefore, understanding the impact of these drivers on soil carbon cycling is of great interest to policy development in the United Kingdom. In this talk we provide an overview of the contribution of soil structure to the delivery of ecosystem services and focus on climate regulation and results from the UK’s longest running climate roof manipulation experiment. Results suggest that both warming and drought result in increased carbon emissions from soils, but for different mechanistic reasons; soil structure play a critical role.