Carbon–Nutrient Economy of the Rhizosphere: Improving Biogeochemical Prediction and Scaling Feedbacks from Ecosystem to Regional Scales

We advance plant-soil-microbial dynamics in terrestrial biosphere/Earth system models in three areas: i) nutrient cycling and plant uptake (nitrogen and phosphorus); ii) root exudation and priming; and, iii) mycorrhizal dynamics. We leverage a multi-site mycorrhizal gradient across the US to update the Fixation & Uptake of Nitrogen (FUN) submodel embedded within CLM 5.0. FUN-CLM specifies the site data collection, which includes soil, leaf chemistry, and litterfall sampling from multiple plots at each site. A remote sensing component expands the observational constraints to the model globally.