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MBL Distinguished Scientist Jerry Melillo is a co-author of , which is based on two long-term research studies sited at : a project Melillo begun in 1991 on soil warming in forest ecosystems, and a study  began in 2006 on soil microbes and warming.

AMHERST, Mass. – The largest terrestrial carbon sink on Earth is the planet’s soil. One of the big fears is that a warming planet will liberate significant portions of the soil’s carbon, turning it into carbon dioxide (CO₂) gas, and so further accelerate the pace of planetary warming. , the predominant form of life on Earth, and which can either turn organic carbon—the fallen leaves, rotting tree stumps, dead roots and other organic matter—into soil, or release it into the atmosphere as CO₂. Now, an international team of researchers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst has helped to untangle one of the knottiest questions involving soil microbes and climate change: what effect does a warming planet have on the microbes’ carbon cycling?

The answer is surprising: increased temperature decreases the rate at which soil microbes respire CO₂—but only in the summer. During the rest of the year, microbial activity remains largely historically consistent.

But there’s a catch to this seemingly happy story.

Soil microbes are releasing less CO₂ in the summer because they’re starving. And they’re starving because long-term warming is threatening the viability of deciduous trees, on whose dead leaves the microbes depend.