Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, United States of America.
Renewable Resources and Enabling Sciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Oct 21;19(10):e0309321. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0309321. eCollection 2024.
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 belowground traits. Here, we provide initial observations of C and nutrients in soil and root and stem tissues from a common garden field site of diverse, natural variant, Populus trichocarpa genotypes-established for aboveground biomass-to-biofuels research. Our goal was to explore the value of such field sites for evaluating genotype-specific effects on soil C, which ultimately informs the potential for optimizing bioenergy systems for both aboveground productivity and belowground C storage. To do this, we investigated variation in chemical traits at the scale of individual trees and genotypes and we explored correlations among stem, root, and soil samples. We observed substantial variation in soil chemical properties at the scale of individual trees and specific genotypes. While correlations among elements were observed both within and among sample types (soil, stem, root), above-belowground correlations were generally poor. We did not observe genotype-specific patterns in soil C in the top 10 cm, but we did observe genotype associations with soil acid-base chemistry (soil pH and base cations) and bulk density. Finally, a specific phenotype of interest (high vs low lignin) was unrelated to soil biogeochemistry. Our pilot study supports the usefulness of decade-old, genetically-variable, Populus bioenergy field test plots for understanding plant genotype effects on soil properties. Finally, this study contributes to the advancement of sampling methods and baseline data for Populus systems in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Further species- and region-specific efforts will enhance C predictability across scales in bioenergy systems and, ultimately, accelerate the identification of genotypes that optimize yield and carbon storage.
优化作物以实现协同土壤碳（C）固存可以增强食品和生物能源生产系统中 CO2 的去除。然而，在生物能源系统中，我们缺乏对植物性状种内变异与土壤生物地球化学变异之间相关性的理解。这种知识差距既加剧了地下性状的异质性和测量难度。在这里，我们提供了来自不同天然变异的杂种白杨（Populus trichocarpa）基因型的共同田间试验场的土壤、根系和茎组织中 C 和养分的初步观察结果，该试验场是为地上生物量到生物燃料的研究而建立的。我们的目标是探索这些田间试验场对于评估基因型对土壤 C 的特定影响的价值，这最终为优化生物能源系统以提高地上生产力和地下 C 存储提供了信息。为此，我们研究了个体树木和基因型尺度上的化学性状变化，并探索了茎、根和土壤样本之间的相关性。我们观察到个体树木和特定基因型尺度上土壤化学性质的显著变化。虽然在样本类型（土壤、茎、根）内和之间都观察到了元素之间的相关性，但地上-地下相关性通常较差。我们没有观察到 10cm 表土中土壤 C 的基因型特异性模式，但我们确实观察到了基因型与土壤酸碱化学（土壤 pH 和基础阳离子）和体密度的关联。最后，一个感兴趣的特定表型（高木质素与低木质素）与土壤生物地球化学无关。我们的初步研究支持使用具有数十年历史的、遗传上可变的白杨生物能源田间试验场来了解植物基因型对土壤特性的影响。最后，这项研究为美国太平洋西北地区的杨树系统的采样方法和基线数据的发展做出了贡献。进一步的物种和区域特定的努力将提高生物能源系统中 C 的可预测性，并最终加速确定优化产量和碳存储的基因型。
