Adjustment of microbial nitrogen use efficiency to carbon:nitrogen imbalances regulates soil nitrogen cycling
Open accessAbstract
Microbial nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) describes the partitioning of organic N taken up between growth and the release of inorganic N to the environment (that is, N mineralization), and is thus central to our understanding of N cycling. Here we report empirical evidence that microbial decomposer communities in soil and plant litter regulate their NUE. We find that microbes retain most immobilized organic N (high NUE), when they are N limited, resulting in low N mineralization. However, when the metabolic control of microbial decomposers switches from N to C limitation, they release an increasing fraction of organic N as ammonium (low NUE). We conclude that the regulation of NUE is an essential strategy of microbial communities to cope with resource imbalances, independent of the regulation of microbial carbon use efficiency, with significant effects on terrestrial N cycling.
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Crop residues with a C:N ratio below 20-25 are mineralized more quickly than those with higher C:N ratios.
“Crop residues with a C:N ratio below 20–25 are supposed to be mineralized more quickly than those with higher C:N ratios (Mooshammer et al., 2014).”
From Potential of Wheat Straw, Spruce Sawdust, and Lignin as High Organic Carbon Soil Amendments to Improve Agricultural Nitrogen Retention Capacity: An Incubation Study (2018) · cites this paper as Mooshammer et al., 2014
The Discussion (page not specified) places a C:N threshold around 20–25 at the transition from net nitrogen immobilization to net nitrogen mineralization during organic-matter decomposition. It does not say that crop residues below that threshold decompose or mineralize more quickly than residues above it; the claimed difference in speed is unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Mooshammer, M., Wanek, W., Hämmerle, I., Fuchslueger, L., Hofhansl, F., Knoltsch, A., Schnecker, J., Takriti, M., Watzka, M., Wild, B., Keiblinger, K. M., Zechmeister-Boltenstern, S., & Richter, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Vienna (AT)
- BOKU University (AT)
- Corresponding author
- Mooshammer, Maria
- Wanek, Wolfgang
- Richter, Andreas
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2014-04-16
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3694-3694
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3997803
- OpenAlex
- W1989987546
- Cited by
- 1,010
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 166 · 2025: 128 · 2024: 110 · 2023: 108 · 2022: 94 · 2021: 107 · 2020: 87 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 47 · 2017: 39 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 46.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Phaidra (Universität Wien) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Science Foundation
- Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
- Austrian Science Fund (I370, FWF ‐ I370‐B17, S-10007-B-01)
- European Social Fund
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions
- Keywords
- soil nitrogen cycling, nitrogen mineralization, plant litter, nitrogen limitation, carbon limitation, ammonium release, microbial carbon use efficiency
- MeSH terms
- Carbon, Soil, Soil Microbiology, Metabolic Networks and Pathways, Nitrogen Cycle, Microbiota, Ammonium Compounds
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