Soil microbial carbon use efficiency and the constraints

Abstract Background Microbial contributions to soil organic carbon formation have received increasing attention, and microbial carbon use efficiency is positively correlated with soil organic carbon storage. Mainbody This work reviews the impact on microbial carbon use efficiency from six constraints, including plant community composition and diversity, soil pH, substrate quality, nutrient availability and stoichiometric ratios, soil texture and aggregates, water and thermal constraints, and external nutrient inputs. In general, the response of microbial carbon use efficiency showed large uncertainty to above constraints, including positive-, negative-, or non-correlation. However, some factors are biased, more likely to promote or inhibit carbon use efficiency. For example, external nutrient input (N, P, K, Ca) tended to promote carbon use efficiency, while climate warming showed more negative influence. Conclusion Further, overwhelming works focused on single constraint, we suggest the importance to consider the synergistic influence of multiple environmental variables on microbial carbon use efficiency, special for the regulation mechanism of biological-environmental interactions.