Feeling Stressed? How Soil Carbon Protection Mechanisms Respond to Climate Extremes

Climate change is intensifying environmental extremes, subjecting soil ecosystems to unprecedented and overlapping stressors. Yet the impact of such stressors on the mechanisms that protect soil carbon—the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir—remains poorly understood. In this presentation, I will explore how climatic extremes and their associated stressors impact carbon protection mechanisms in soils. Drawing on evidence from controlled model systems, climate manipulation experiments, and field studies, I will highlight how key stressors—including water and nutrient limitation, viral infection, and oxidative stress—alter the effectiveness of multiple carbon protection mechanisms. Together, our results highlight the immediate response of otherwise “protected” soil carbon to environmental stressors, underscoring the soil carbon persistence is not fixed, but dynamically regulated by environmental conditions. I will conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for predicting short- and long-term soil carbon dynamics in a rapidly changing climate.