Premium
New uses for old tools: Reviving Holdridge Life Zones in soil carbon persistence research
Author(s) -
Jungkunst Hermann F.,
Goepel Jan,
Horvath Thomas,
Ott Simone,
Brunn Melanie
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of plant nutrition and soil science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.644
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1522-2624
pISSN - 1436-8730
DOI - 10.1002/jpln.202100008
Subject(s) - persistence (discontinuity) , soil carbon , environmental science , identification (biology) , climate change , precipitation , computer science , earth science , ecology , geography , soil science , geology , soil water , meteorology , biology , geotechnical engineering
Growing evidence suggests that climate classification facilitates the identification of zones that either agree or disagree with processes explaining soil organic carbon (SOC) persistence. Already forty years ago, Post et al. (1982) posited that the strict temperature and precipitation‐based classification defining the Holdridge Life Zones (HLZ) provides a descriptive tool to guide our understanding of the heterogeneous distribution of global SOC stocks. Here we argue that this classification has the potential for describing SOC persistence by linking top‐down and bottom‐up approaches from different scales, which allows selection of individual regional relevancies necessary to manage and track the fate of our largest terrestrial carbon (C) reservoir.