Dear Colleagues, On behalf of the convener team, I would like to bring your attention to the EGU Soil System Science session SSS4.8 <https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2019/session/30824> "*Microbial carbon use efficiency in soils*" (EGU General Assembly 2019, 7-12 April 2019, Vienna, Austria).
This session aims to bring together contributions on modelling and empirical CUE approaches. Please see the abstract below for more information. The deadline for the receipt of abstracts <https://egu2019.eu/abstracts_and_programme/how_to_submit_an_abstract.html> is 10 January 2019, 13:00 CET. If you would like to apply for a Roland Schlich travel support, please submit no later than 1 December 2018. Details can be found here <https://egu2019.eu/about_and_support/roland_schlich_travel_support.html>. Please feel free to forward this along to any other potentially interested colleagues. Best regards, Stefano, Sergey, Anke and Maria ----------------------------------------------- SSS4.8 Microbial carbon use efficiency in soils Convener: Stefano Manzoni Co-Conveners: Sergey Blagodatsky, Anke Herrmann, Maria Mooshammer Carbon use efficiency (CUE=ratio of biomass production over carbon substrate consumption) became a topical term in soil science only during the last decade, although the topic of microbial carbon allocation has been investigated for several decades. The initiative to learn more about the partitioning of organic carbon between storage in biomass (potentially leading to sequestration) and CO2 efflux from soil to atmosphere was partly motivated by modellers looking for effective parameterizations of carbon flows. Therefore, this session will cover new modelling approaches considering possible environmental, biological and soil factors controlling CUE in soil. These new modelling efforts are supported by novel measurement approaches, which allow reducing uncertainties in CUE estimates. Hence, this session also welcomes contributions showing results on CUE estimation in soil using advanced methods – isotope labelling, kinetic studies, isothermal calorimetry and approaches disclosing the effect of microbial community composition and activity on CUE. One of the main difficulties in modelling CUE is scaling the model concept from organism to soil profile, ecosystem and finally to global level. We welcome new ideas and solutions in this direction, including empirical approaches that allow crossing these scales. In-depth studies showing how different microbial processes (growth, maintenance, biomass death and recycling) influence apparent CUE and carbon storage in soil are welcomed as well.
