Microbes in Soil - Helping a Carbon Source or Sink?

The first 200 words of this essay...

Er Chian Kong (41004159)

Essay - News and Views

Environmental Microbiology & Bioresources BIOL 377

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Microbes in Soil - Helping a Carbon Source or Sink?

Soils hold a lot of carbon - 2000 gigatonnes in soil organic matter. This review looks at the relationship of the soil microorganisms and the aboveground plants in elevated CO2 and how they influence soil to be a carbon source or sink in a time where the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is constantly on the rise.

Carbon is the key element of life and the carbon cycle binds together earth's ecosystems and their inhabitants. Carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2), is the major greenhouse gas released to the atmosphere. This ever increasing release of greenhouse gases cause global warming and raise the sea levels. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already increased by about 30% since the start of the industrial revolution in the 19th century and will continue to increase even as some countries had begun to use green renewable energy.

Billions of years of intimate interaction of biotic and abiotic processes had give rise to complex and highly