Project description
Revealing the dynamics of soil organic carbon storage after reforestation
Reforestation effectively mitigates climate change by enhancing carbon sequestration. However, it is unclear how soil organic carbon (SOC) storage changes over time, which limits our ability to evaluate forest carbon sink potential and the feasibility of large-scale reforestation. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the ForestC project will uncover the mechanisms underlying SOC storage during long-term forest succession following reforestation. It will combine a global data synthesis with field studies of three secondary succession sequences across Europe, integrating resource limitation theories with microbial life strategies. The project will examine mineral-associated organic carbon, particulate organic carbon, and microbial biomass carbon, study the microbial mechanisms involved in their storage, and provide insights into SOC storage over centennial timescales.
Objective
Reforestation is widely recognised as an effective nature-based solution to mitigate climate change by enhancing ecosystem carbon (C) sequestration. While C storage in vegetation increases substantially after reforestation, it remains highly uncertain whether, and how, soil organic C (SOC) storage also increases on centennial timescales. This knowledge gap critically limits our capacity to assess forest C sink potential and to implement large-scale reforestation, as soils store more than twice as much C as vegetation. ForestC aims to reveal the potential and mechanisms of SOC storage during long-term forest succession following reforestation. To achieve this, the project will combine a global data synthesis with a field study of three long-term forest secondary succession sequences across Europe, integrating resource limitation theories with novel concepts of microbial life strategies. ForestC will investigate the dynamics of key SOC components (i.e. mineral-associated organic C, particulate organic C, and microbial biomass C) through succession, and explore the microbial mechanisms governing their storage. A combination of state-of-the-art molecular and genomic techniques, ecological stoichiometry, and process-based models will be employed to address these objectives and maximize the utility of the results. Overall, ForestC will provide critical insights into how SOC storage develops after reforestation on centennial timescales and the role of microbial life strategies in this process. While advancing my career development by broadening research expertise and strengthening international networks, this Action will also contribute to a pressing global challenge of central importance to Horizon Europe, inform climate mitigation science, and provide robust evidence to guide policy-making.
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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28006 Madrid
Spain
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