The decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC) is intrinsically sensitive to temperature. However, the degree to which the temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition (as often measured in Q10 value) varies with soil depth and labile substrate availability remain unclear. This study explores (1) how the Q10 of SOC decomposition changes with increasing soil depth, and (2) how increasing labile substrate availability affects the Q10 at different soil depths. We measured soil CO2 production at four temperatures (6, 14, 22 and 30 °C) using an infrared CO2 analyzer. Treatments included four soil depths (0–20, 20–40, 40–60 and 60–80 cm), four sites (farm, redwood forest, ungrazed and grazed grassland), and two levels of labile substrate availability (ambient and saturated by adding glucose solution). We found that Q10 values at ambient substrate availability decreased with increasing soil depth, from 2.0–2.4 in 0–20 cm to 1.5–1.8 in 60–80 cm. Moreover, saturated labile substrate availability led to higher Q10 in most soil layers, and the increase in Q10 due to labile substrate addition was larger in subsurface soils (20–80 cm) than in surface soils (0–20 cm). Further analysis showed that microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and SOC best explained the variation in Q10 at ambient substrate availability across ecosystems and depths (R2 = 0.37, P < 0.001), and MBC best explained the variation in the change of Q10 between control and glucose addition treatment (R2 = 0.14, P = 0.003). Overall, these results indicate that labile substrate limitation of the temperature sensitivity of SOC decomposition, as previously shown in surface soils, is even stronger for subsoils. Understanding processes controlling the labile substrate availability (e.g., with rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and land use change) should advance our prediction of the fate of subsoil SOC in a warmer world.

Soils are globally significant sources and sinks of atmospheric CO2. Increasing the resolution of soil carbon turnover estimates is important for predicting the response of soil carbon cycling to environmental change. We show that soil carbon turnover times can be more finely resolved using a dual isotope label like the one provided by elevated CO2 experiments that use fossil CO2. We modeled each soil physical fraction as two pools with different turnover times using the atmospheric 14C bomb spike in combination with the label in 14C and 13C provided by an elevated CO2 experiment in a California annual grassland. In sandstone and serpentine soils, the light fraction carbon was 21-54% fast cycling with 2-9 yr turnover, and 36-79% slow cycling with turnover slower than 100 yr. This validates model treatment of the light fraction as active and intermediate cycling carbon. The dense, mineral-associated fraction also had a very dynamic component, consisting of ∼7% fast-cycling carbon and ∼93% very slow cycling carbon. Similarly, half the microbial biomass carbon in the sandstone soil was more than 5 yr old, and 40% of the carbon respired by microbes had been fixed more than 5 yr ago. Resolving each density fraction into two pools revealed that only a small component of total soil carbon is responsible for most CO2 efflux from these soils. In the sandstone soil, 11% of soil carbon contributes more than 90% of the annual CO2 efflux. The fact that soil physical fractions, designed to isolate organic material of roughly homogeneous physico-chemical state, contain material of dramatically different turnover times is consistent with recent observations of rapid isotope incorporation into seemingly stable fractions and with emerging evidence for hot spots or micro-site variation of decomposition within the soil matrix. Predictions of soil carbon storage using a turnover time estimated with the assumption of a single pool per density fraction would greatly overestimate the near-term response to changes in productivity or decomposition rates. Therefore, these results suggest a slower initial change in soil carbon storage due to environmental change than has been assumed by simpler (one-pool) mass balance calculations.©Author(s) 2013. CC Attribution 3.0 License.

Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met (rs4680) polymorphism plays a crucial role in regulating brain dopamine level. Converging evidence from Caucasian samples showed that, compared with rs4680 Val allele, the Met allele was linked to lower COMT activity, which in turn was linked to better cognitive performance such as working memory (WM) and to a larger hippocampus (a brain region important for WM). However, some behavioral studies have shown that the function of rs4680 appears to vary across different ethnic groups, with Chinese subjects showing an opposite pattern as that for Caucasians (i.e. the Val allele is linked to better cognitive functions related to WM in Chinese). Using a sample of healthy Han Chinese college students (ages from 19 to 21 years), this study investigated the association of COMT Val158Met genotype with behavioral data on a two-back WM task (n = 443, 189M/254F) and T1 MRI data (n = 320, 134M/186F). Results showed that, compared to the Met allele, the Val allele was associated with larger hippocampal volume (the right hippocampus: β = -0.118, t = -2.367, P = 0.019, and the left hippocampus: β = -0.099, t = -1.949, P = 0.052) and better WM performance (β = -0.110, t = -2.315, P = 0.021). These results add to the growing literature on differentiated effects of COMT rs4680 polymorphism on WM across populations and offer a brain structural mechanism for such population-specific genetic effects.

The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) would show that lepton number is violated, reveal that neu-trinos are Majorana particles, and provide information on neutrino mass. A discovery-capable experiment covering the inverted ordering region, with effective Majorana neutrino masses of 15 - 50 meV, will require a tonne-scale experiment with excellent energy resolution and extremely low backgrounds, at the level of ∼0.1 count /(FWHM·t·yr) in the region of the signal. The current generation 76Ge experiments GERDA and the Majorana Demonstrator, utilizing high purity Germanium detectors with an intrinsic energy resolution of 0.12%, have achieved the lowest backgrounds by over an order of magnitude in the 0νββ signal region of all 0νββ experiments. Building on this success, the LEGEND collaboration has been formed to pursue a tonne-scale 76Ge experiment. The collaboration aims to develop a phased 0νββ experimental program with discovery potential at a half-life approaching or at 1028 years, using existing resources as appropriate to expedite physics results.