Pulse Brain · Growing Health Evidence Index
Peer-reviewed

Enhanced priming effect in agricultural soils driven by high-quality exogenous organic carbon additions: A meta-analysis

Yuyao Zhang, Hongyu Hu, Yiguo Ran, Ping Huang, Yunlong Cai, Lin Chen, Congzhi Zhang, Xin Gao, Donghao Ma, Jiabao Zhang

The Science of The Total Environment · 2025

Read source ↗ All evidence

Summary

The addition of exogenous organic carbon (C) to soil can either accelerate or retard the soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralization, i.e., the priming effect (PE), which plays a crucial role in SOC sequestration and thus is significant in the context of global warming. However, the influence of exogenous organic C quality on PE remains poorly understood, potentially limiting our understanding of SOC dynamics. Thus, we conducted a global meta-analysis to reveal the effect of exogenous organic C quality on PE through compiling a data set of 2031 experiment trials. Our results revealed that the addition of organic C significantly enhanced SOC decomposition by 46.23 % in agricultural soils. Labile C compounds induced a stronger PE than both intermediate and recalcitrant C compounds. Organic C ma

Source type
Peer-reviewed study
DOI
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.178387
Catalogue ID
SNmohi6hpv-u085m8
Pulse AI · ask about this record

Dig deeper with Pulse AI.

Pulse AI has read the whole catalogue. Ask about this record, its theme, or how the findings apply to UK farming and policy — every answer cites the underlying studies.