Microbial biomass and soil organic carbon accumulation on a former lakebed near Novosibirsk, Russia

Abstract

Shrinking of Lake Chany in W Siberia exposed 10,000 km2 of former lakebed. On this new land we studied a chronosequence of young soils. The fraction of microbial C in total organic C had stabilized at 3% after 30 to 40 y. Concentration of organic C increased within the first 50 to 100 y to 4–5% in the first 10 cm, and to 2–3% at 10–20 cm depth. The amount of sequestered C is equivalent to about 2.5 d of current anthropogenic CO2 emissions