Soil carbon sequestration accelerated by restoration of grassland biodiversity
Open accessAbstract
Agriculturally degraded and abandoned lands can remove atmospheric CO 2 and sequester it as soil organic matter during natural succession. However, this process may be slow, requiring a century or longer to re-attain pre-agricultural soil carbon levels. Here, we find that restoration of late-successional grassland plant diversity leads to accelerating annual carbon storage rates that, by the second period (years 13–22), are 200% greater in our highest diversity treatment than during succession at this site, and 70% greater than in monocultures. The higher soil carbon storage rates of the second period (years 13–22) are associated with the greater aboveground production and root biomass of this period, and with the presence of multiple species, especially C4 grasses and legumes. Our results suggest that restoration of high plant diversity may greatly increase carbon capture and storage rates on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands.
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Globally grass and cropland soils are highly degraded and thus have a long-term sequestration potential.
“However, globally grass and cropland soils are highly degraded and thus have a long-term sequestration potential (Cotrufo et al., 2019;Yang et al., 2019;Lavallee et al., 2020).”
From Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System (2020) · cites this paper as Yang et al., 2019
The Introduction reports substantial soil-carbon losses from cultivation globally and says abandoned, agriculturally degraded land has high sequestration potential that may persist for a century or more. It does not establish that grassland soils globally are highly degraded, so the claim extends beyond the lands the paper discusses. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredCarbon accumulation in vegetation and soils can increase markedly when restoration starts with greater species diversity and late successional species.
“On the other hand, rates of carbon uptake and storage in the biomass and soils can be substantially accelerated; for example, by enhancing species diversity and the presence of late successional species at the onset of restoration 63 .”
From Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration (2020) · cites this paper as [63]
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- Authors
- Yang, Y., Tilman, D., Furey, G., & Lehman, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tilman, David
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2019-02-12
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 718-718
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6372642
- OpenAlex
- W2911658412
- Cited by
- 557
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 68 · 2025: 111 · 2024: 96 · 2023: 93 · 2022: 65 · 2021: 67 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 8
- FWCI
- 37.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1234162, 0620652)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Keywords
- soil carbon sequestration, grassland restoration, plant diversity, root biomass, aboveground production, C4 grasses, Fabaceae, degraded agricultural land, monoculture, natural succession
- MeSH terms
- Agriculture, Carbon, Carbon Dioxide, Poaceae, Soil, Biomass, Biodiversity, Carbon Sequestration, Grassland
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