Publications by authors named "Katrin Kuka"

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is crucial for the quality and productivity of terrestrial ecosystems and its sequestration plays an important role in mitigating climate change. Understanding the effects of agricultural management under future climate on the SOC balance helps decision making in environmental policies. Thereby, grasslands will play a key role, since future climate change may prolong the vegetation period.

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Simulation models represent soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics in global carbon (C) cycle scenarios to support climate-change studies. It is imperative to increase confidence in long-term predictions of SOC dynamics by reducing the uncertainty in model estimates. We evaluated SOC simulated from an ensemble of 26 process-based C models by comparing simulations to experimental data from seven long-term bare-fallow (vegetation-free) plots at six sites: Denmark (two sites), France, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

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The relatively poor simulation of the below-ground processes is a severe drawback for many ecosystem models, especially when predicting responses to climate change and management. For a meaningful estimation of ecosystem production and the cycling of water, energy, nutrients and carbon, the integration of soil processes and the exchanges at the surface is crucial. It is increasingly recognized that soil biota play an important role in soil organic carbon and nutrient cycling, shaping soil structure and hydrological properties through their activity, and in water and nutrient uptake by plants through mycorrhizal processes.

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