Functional substitutability of native herbivores by livestock for soil carbon stock is mediated by microbial decomposers

作者：Shamik Roy, Dilip G. T. Naidu, Sumanta Bagchi · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1111/gcb.16600 · 被引用次数：35 · 研究领域：Gut microbiota and health、Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology、Forest Management and Policy

Abstract Grazing by large mammalian herbivores impacts climate as it can favor the size and stability of a large carbon (C) pool in the soils of grazing ecosystems. As native herbivores in the world's grasslands, steppes, and savannas are progressively being displaced by livestock, it is important to ask whether livestock can emulate the functional roles of their native counterparts. While livestock and native herbivores can have remarkable similarity in their traits, they can differ greatly in their impacts on vegetation composition which can affect soil‐C. It is uncertain how these similarities and differences impact soil‐C via their influence on microbial decomposers. We test competing alternative hypotheses with a replicated, long‐term, landscape‐level, grazing‐exclusion experiment to ask whether livestock in the Trans‐Himalayan ecosystem of northern India can match decadal‐scale (2005–2016) soil‐C stocks under native herbivores. We evaluate multiple lines of evidence from 17 variables that influence soil‐C (quantity and quality of C‐input from plants, microbial biomass and metabolism, microbial community composition, eDNA, veterinary antibiotics in soil), and assess their inter‐relationships. Livestock and native herbivores differed in their effects on several soil microbial processes. Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) was 19% lower in soils under livestock. Compared to native herbivores, areas used by livestock contained 1.5 kg C m −2 less soil‐C. Structural equatio...