Degradable film mulching increases soil carbon sequestration in major Chinese dryland agroecosystems
Plastic film mulching (PM), which contributes to nearly half of the increased crop yields in dryland agroecosystems, exacerbates environmental burdens due to its non-degradable nature. Globally, there is a growing demand to replace non-degradable PM with degradable film mulching (DM), yet its impacts on soil organic carbon (SOC) in dryland agroecosystems remains unknown. Here, using multi-field studies and mesocosm experiments, we found that DM strongly increased but PM reduced SOC storage (0-1 m). This difference is likely attributable to the higher microbial C use efficiency in soil under DM, leading to increased microbial-derived C compared to PM. Under the high roading scenario for 2100, DM could reduce the decomposition of SOC (0-1 m) in China's drylands by 9.0 ± 1.0 Mg ha<sup>-1</sup> year<sup>-1</sup> (one standard error) compared with PM. Our findings highlight that DM is a promising alternative to PM for sequestrating SOC and alleviating C loss under climate change in dryland agroecosystems.
Authors
- Nyumah Fallah (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6923-9755)
- Nanhai Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8903-9097)
- Yakov Kuzyakov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9863-8461)
- Yves Uwiragiye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0127-8763)
- Thomas Ward Crowther (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5674-8913)
- Kadambot H. M. Siddique (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6097-4235)
- Zucong Cai
- Scott X. Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7624-439X)
- Yi Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0559-1319)
- Jing Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4361-7281)
- Sheng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0462-6724)
- Zhaoyang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4742-8296)
- Zihan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4211-5864)
- Christoph Müller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9491-3550)
- Yuanyuan Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6990-8864)
- Yi Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5280-6132)
- Chenxu Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7347-0371)
- Zhikuan Jia
- Minggang Xu
Institutions
- University College Dublin (IE)
- Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RU)
- Nanjing Normal University (CN)
- University of Alberta (CA)
- Nanjing Forestry University (CN)
- The University of Western Australia (AU)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (DE)
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (DE)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- North West Agriculture and Forestry University (CN)
- Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (CN)
- Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application (CN)
- Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (CN)
- Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CN)
- Institute of Soil Science (CN)
- China Agricultural University (CN)
- University of Göttingen (DE)
- University of Tübingen (DE)
- Northwest A&F University (CN)
- Leipzig University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-05-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60036-5
- Citations
- 17
- Primary Topic
- Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 20.16
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Higher Education Discipline Innovation Project
- National Key Research and Development Program of China