Abstract With climate change and an increasing global human population, the concept of agroforestry is gaining economic environmental interest. The practice growing trees crops on same land mainly applied in (sub)tropical rarer temperate areas where farmers fear decreased understorey crop yields due to competition with trees. However, whether stronger below- (soil moisture, nutrients) or aboveg...

Background Northern peatlands have accumulated vast amounts of carbon (C) as peat. Warming temperatures may affect peatland C stores by increasing microbial decomposition ancient peat through enhanced input labile root exudates expansion vascular plants, thereby accelerating atmospheric warming. Aims We set out to explore how much freshly assimilated is allocated belowground and if the above- a...

Soil microbial respiration is a central process in the terrestrial carbon (C) cycle. In this study, I tested the effect of the carbon-to-nitrogen (C : N) ratio of soil litter layers on microbial respiration in absolute terms and per unit microbial biomass C. For this purpose, a global data set on microbial respiration per unit microbial biomass C – termed the metabolic quotient (qCO2) – was com...