Scientific news
Tuesday, 30-06-2026 | 08:42
Soil organic carbon (OC) sequestration is presumed to rely to a large extent on microbial transformation of plant residues into microbial necromass. Necromass formation, however, represents only one pathway by which microorganisms contribute to soil organic matter, while OC released through metabolism is often neglected. Using a dynamic modeling approach, we show that exudates and waste products contribute about equally to bacterially derived OC inputs to soil with median contributions of 10% each



