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Component-specific shifts in soil respiration and its temperature sensitivity following natural forest conversion

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Abstract

Natural forest conversion profoundly alters soil respiration, yet its differential effects on autotrophic and heterotrophic components and their temperature sensitivity (Q10) remain unresolved globally. Here we synthesize 452 paired observations from 164 field studies, showing that soil respiration declines by 7.0% following forest conversion, primarily driven by a pronounced reduction in autotrophic respiration (−26.8%), whereas heterotrophic respiration exhibits no consistent response. Although Q10 does not shift significantly across all conversions, it increases markedly following conversion to agriculture (+8.8%) and grassland (+11.8%). Both soil respiration suppression and Q10 elevation are transient, converging toward adjacent forest levels within approximately 30 years. Variations in soil respiration reflect the opposing influences of soil organic carbon loss and post-conversion soil warming, whereas Q10 responses are strongly modulated by initial soil clay content and pH. Our findings underscore the need to incorporate component-resolved and context-dependent soil respiration and Q10 into Earth system models to improve projections of long-term carbon–climate feedbacks under land-use change.

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Data availability

The data supporting the main findings of this study is publicly available in Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17318857.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank all the scientists whose data were included in this meta-analysis. This work was supported by the Science & Technology Fundamental Resources Investigation Program (2023FY100100), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32522064, 32430065, and 32471831), the Science and Technology Plan Project of Shanghai (23DZ1202700), Fundamental and Interdisciplinary Disciplines Breakthrough Plan of the Ministry of Education of China (JYB2025XDXM911), and State Key Laboratory for Vegetation Structure, Function and Construction (VegLab).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Wetland Conservation and Restoration, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, and Institute of Eco-Chongming, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Rong Fan, Xiangyi Li, Changming Fang, Bo Li, Ming Nie & Jinquan Li

  2. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Transboundary Ecosecurity of Southwest China, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Plant Reproductive Adaptation and Evolutionary Ecology and Centre for Invasion Biology, Institute of Biodiversity, School of Ecology and Environmental Science and Southwest United Graduate School, Yunnan University, Kunming, China

    Bo Li

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  1. Rong Fan
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Contributions

J.L. designed the research. R.F. collected the data and performed the overall analysis. R.F. and J.L. wrote the original draft, and X.L., C.F., B.L., and M.N. contributed to reviewing and editing. All authors approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to
Jinquan Li.

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Communications Earth and Environment thanks Aneesh Chandel and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Lifen Jiang, Mengjie Wang. A peer review file is available.

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Fan, R., Li, X., Fang, C. et al. Component-specific shifts in soil respiration and its temperature sensitivity following natural forest conversion.
Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03449-4

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