Publications
Showing 18 results for Author: Matthew E. Craig
Sep, 2025
Journal
Which plant traits increase soil carbon sequestration? Empirical evidence from a long-term poplar genetic diversity trial
Plants play a key role in mediating soil response to global change, and breeding or engineering crops to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) storage is a potential route to land-based carbon dioxide removal in agricultural systems. However, due to limited observational datasets plus shifting paradigms of SOC stabilization, it is unclear which plant traits are most important…
Jun, 2025
Journal
The Freundlich isotherm equation best represents phosphate sorption across soil orders and land use types in tropical soils of Puerto Rico
Biomass production in the lowland wet tropical forest is greater than in any other biome, and it is typically limited by soil phosphorus (P) availability. However, the mechanisms involved in the P cycle remain poorly represented in Earth System Models (ESMs). Soil P sorption processes are key in the P cycle and for understanding the extent of P limitation for plant product…
Feb, 2025
Journal
Anthromes and forest carbon responses to global change
Forest ecosystems absorb and store about 25% of global carbon dioxide emissions annually and are increasingly shaped by human land use and management. Climate change interacts with land use and forest dynamics to influence observed carbon stocks and the strength of the land carbon sink. We show that climate change effects on modeled forest land carbon stocks are strongest…
Oct, 2024
Journal
Intraspecific variability in plant and soil chemical properties in a common garden plantation of the energy crop Populus
Optimizing crops for synergistic soil carbon (C) sequestration can enhance CO2 removal in food and bioenergy production systems. Yet, in bioenergy systems, we lack an understanding of how intraspecies variation in plant traits correlates with variation in soil biogeochemistry. This knowledge gap is exacerbated by both the heterogeneity and difficulty of measuring belowgrou…
Sep, 2024
Journal
Tropical forests and global change: biogeochemical responses and opportunities for cross-site comparisons, an organized INSPIRE session at the 108th Annual Meeting, Ecological Society of America, Portland, Oregon, USA, August 2023
Tropical forests play a critical role in the global carbon (C) cycle. These ecosystems maintain the highest rates of net primary production (NPP) on Earth (Hengl et al., 2017), contain c. 30% of terrestrial C stocks (Jobbagy & Jackson, 2000), and have some of the largest stores of fine-root biomass globally (Jackson et al., 1996), as well as higher fine-root production and…
Nov, 2023
Journal
Standardized Data to Improve Understanding and Modeling of Soil Nitrogen at Continental Scale
Nitrogen (N) is a key limiting nutrient in terrestrial ecosystems, but there remain critical gaps in our ability to predict and model controls on soil N cycling. This may be in part due to lack of standardized sampling across broad spatial–temporal scales. Here, we introduce a continentally distributed, publicly available data set collected by the National Ecological Obser…
Nov, 2023
Journal
Integrating the evidence for a terrestrial carbon sink caused by increasing atmospheric CO 2
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) is increasing, which increases leaf‐scale photosynthesis and intrinsic water‐use efficiency. These direct responses have the potential to increase plant growth, vegetation biomass, and soil organic matter; transferring carbon from the atmosphere into terrestrial ecosystems (a carbon sink). A substantial global terrestrial ca…
Nov, 2023
Journal
Effects of root litter traits on soil organic matter dynamics depend on decay stage and root branching order
Decaying roots contribute disproportionately to soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in many ecosystems, yet few studies have examined the afterlife effects of root trait variability on the formation, stability and mineralization of SOC. In order to assess how root functional class (absorptive vs. transport) and mycorrhizal association (ectomycorrhizal vs. arbuscular mycorrhiz…