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Soil organic matter is a vast store of carbon, with a critical role in theglobal carbon cycle. Despite its importance, the dynamics of soil organiccarbon decomposition, under the impact of climate change or changing litterinputs, are poorly understood. Current biogeochemical models usually lackmicrobial processes and thus miss an important feedback when considering thefate of carbon. Here we use a series of modelling experiments to evaluate twodifferent model structures: one with a standard first-order kineticrepresentation of soil decomposition (DecoChem v1.0, hereafter chemicalmodel) and one with control of soil decomposition through microbial activity(DecoBio v1.0, hereafter biological model). The biological model includescycling of organic matter into and out of microbial biomass, and simulatesthe decay rate as a functional of microbial activity. We tested twohypotheses. First, we hypothesized different responses in the two models toincreased litter inputs and glucose additions. In the microbial model wehypothesized that this perturbation would prime microbial activity and reducesoil carbon stocks; in the chemical model we expected this perturbation toincrease C stocks. In the biological model, responses to changed litterquantity were more rapid, but with the residence time of soil C altering suchthat soil C stocks were buffered. However, in the biological model there wasa strong response to increased glucose additions (i.e. changes in litterquality), with significant losses to soil C stocks over time, driven bypriming. Secondly, we hypothesized that warming will stimulate decompositionin the chemical model and loss of C, but in the biological model soil C willbe less sensitive to warming, due to complex microbial feedbacks. Thenumerical experiments supported this hypothesis, with the chemical model soilC residence times and steady-state C stocks adjusting strongly withtemperature changes, extending over decades. On the other hand, thebiological model showed a rapid response to temperature that subsided after afew years, with total soil C stocks largely unchanged. The microbial modelshows qualitative agreement with experimental warming studies that foundtransient increases in soil respiration that decline within a few years. Inconclusion, the biological model is largely buffered against bulk changes inlitter inputs and climate, unlike the chemical model, while the biologicalmodel displays a strong priming response to additions of labile litter. Ourresults have therefore highlighted significantly different sensitivitiesbetween chemical and biological modelling approaches for soil decomposition

Comparing microbial and chemical kinetics for modelling soil organic carbon decomposition using the DecoChem v1.0 and DecoBio v1.0 models