Soil Microbial Functions Affecting Soil Carbon Cycling

Dear Colleagues,

Soil carbon cycling is a critical for mitigating climate change, ensuring global food security, and maintaining ecosystem resilience. Despite its importance, the microbial mechanisms that underpin the formation, stabilization, and persistence remain poorly understood, posing a significant challenge to predicting and managing soil carbon dynamics under global change.

This Special Issue aims to address this knowledge gap by highlighting cutting-edge research on the functions of soil microorganisms in regulating soil carbon cycling. We seek contributions that elucidate the microbial processes governing soil carbon stability across diverse ecosystems, land-use types, and management regimes. The Issue will foster a mechanistic understanding of how microbial community composition, functional gene, metabolic activity, and interactions influence the long-term fate of soil carbon.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Microbial responses to global change drivers and their consequent effects on soil carbon persistence.
2. The role of microbial characteristics associated with soil management practices that modify the soil carbon cycling.
3. The influence of coupled biogeochemical cycles (e.g., C-N, C-Fe) on soil carbon cycling mediated by key microbial taxa and functional genes.
4. Microbial processes governing the dynamics of distinct soil carbon fractions from micro to macro scales.

Types of Papers Solicited:

Original Research Articles (presenting novel experimental or field data).

Comprehensive Reviews (systematic and critical assessments of the current state of knowledge).

Case Studies (in-depth analyses of specific management practices or ecosystems).

Short Communications (concise reports of significant preliminary findings).

Prof. Dr. San'an Nie
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.