Global patterns and drivers of soil microbial nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency
While nutrient use efficiency of soil microorganisms, the proportion of assimilated nutrients allocated into biosynthesis rather than invested in mineralization, is a critical microbial functional trait, its global patterns remain poorly quantified. Here, we estimate microbial nitrogen use efficiency (NUE, n = 2012) and phosphorus use efficiency (PUE, n = 3419) across terrestrial ecosystems using the ecoenzymatic stoichiometric approach. Globally, NUE (mean 0.60) is nearly twice as high as PUE (0.35). Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the strongest predictor of both, with higher SOC associated with greater nutrient use efficiency. Spatial upscaling shows that tundra and boreal forest soils have markedly lower NUE than other regions, suggesting high nitrogen investments in nutrient acquisition in cold ecosystems, whereas PUE is similar across biomes, implying pervasively low phosphorus acquisition capacity. Our study identifies potential nutrient cycling hotspots worldwide and offers critical parameters to refine large-scale predictions of soil carbon and nutrient dynamics.
Authors
- Z. D. Liu
- Shengwang Meng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1324-3004)
- Lifei Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1897-3559)
- Huimin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8807-8230)
- Xu Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3236-2313)
- Daryl L. Moorhead
- Yakov Kuzyakov
- Robert L. Sinsabaugh
- Yongxing Cui
- Josep Peñuelas
- Liang Kou
- Decai Gao
- Siyu Wang
- Xiaoqing Dai
- Frank Hagedorn
- Xiaofeng Xu
- Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo
- Matthias C. Rillig
Institutions
- Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RU)
- University of New Mexico (US)
- Northeast Normal University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- San Diego State University (US)
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH)
- Beijing Forestry University (CN)
- Berlin Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (DE)
- Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications (ES)
- Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (ES)
- Nanning Normal University (CN)
- Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB
- University of Göttingen (DE)
- Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
- University of Toledo (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2026-03-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70602-0
- Primary Topic
- Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00