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Afforestation of severely desertified land in semi-arid areas promotes soil carbon and nitrogen accumulation through microbial necromass

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Abstract

Afforestation is an important measure used to expand carbon (C) sequestration and mitigate climate change. However, the impact of soil microbial necromass on soil C and nitrogen (N) sequestration still remain unclear following afforestation of severely desertified land. We investigated 10-, 20-, and 40-year-old Caragana microphylla and Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica plantations (±2 years) established on mobile dunes in northern China, taking mobile dunes and natural grassland and forest as references. We then collected topsoil (0 − 20 cm) samples and measured amino sugar. Afforestation would ideally increase soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) storage by 26.3 and 2.5 Tg, respectively, after 40 years based on the baseline of the year 2000. It would take more than 110 years to realize SOC and TN restoration, taking natural grassland as a reference. Microbial necromass were highest in natural ecosystems, followed by plantations and mobile dunes. Afforestation promoted the accumulation of microbial necromass, leading to an increase in SOC and TN. Microbial necromass contributed more to TN (24.4 to 49.5%) than to SOC (22.3 to 41.0%). Fungal necromass were approximately four times greater than bacterial necromass. Improving soil physical properties and mitigating N limitation are potential effective methods for increasing microbial necromass.

Data availability

Source data for all figures in the manuscript and Supplementary materials can be found in the Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31338715)74. All other data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 42301080), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant number 2023M743744), the Science and Technology Program of Gansu Province (grant number 23JRRA636), “Unveiling the List and Leading the Way” Science and Technology Innovation Major Demonstration Project of Inner Mongolia (grant number 2024JBGS0007), and Grassland Elite Projects of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (grant number E339050701).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Geography, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China

    Yun Chen & Jinliang Wang

  2. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China

    Wenjie Cao

  3. State Key Laboratory of Ecological Safety and Sustainable Development in Arid Lands, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China

    Xiaoming Mou, Xuyang Wang & Yuqiang Li

  4. Naiman Desertification Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tongliao, China

    Xiaoming Mou, Xuyang Wang & Yuqiang Li

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  1. Yun Chen
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  2. Wenjie Cao
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  3. Xiaoming Mou
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  4. Xuyang Wang
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  5. Yuqiang Li
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Contributions

Y.C., Y.L. designed the study. W.C., Y.C., X.M., and X.W. conducted the experiments. W.C., Y.C. performed the analysis and drafted the paper with help from J.W.

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Wenjie Cao or Yuqiang Li.

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Communications Biology thanks Nathielly Martins and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary handling editor: Tobias Goris.

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Chen, Y., Cao, W., Mou, X. et al. Afforestation of severely desertified land in semi-arid areas promotes soil carbon and nitrogen accumulation through microbial necromass.
Commun Biol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-026-09775-9

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