Conservation agriculture buffers persistent carbon loss under warming by microbial adaptation.

Conservation agriculture enhances soil carbon persistence under warming by promoting microbial metabolic adaptation, increasing the anabolic-to-catabolic gene ratio by 16%.

• Why it matters: Understanding how agricultural practices influence microbial responses to warming is crucial for developing strategies to maintain soil carbon stocks amid climate change.
• What they did: The study combined 18O-H2O tracing of community-level carbon use efficiency with 13C-probing of substrate utilization efficiency across different substrates after 11 years of warming under conventional and conservation agriculture, focusing on microbial functional adaptations.
• The result: Conservation agriculture improved substrate quality and shifted microbial communities toward growth-oriented taxa, leading to increased microbial anabolic efficiency and enhanced soil carbon stability under warming conditions.