Understanding of Coupled Physicochemical Mechanisms Controlling Soil Carbon Storage and Stabilization.

With the increasing threat of climate and global change, there is a need to understand how agroecosystems will adapt and provide opportunities for mitigation.  This requires concerted efforts to improve our holistic understanding of the complex relationships regulating belowground soil processes. Determining the regulation of soil structure and C in the soil will develop the basis for soil quality and C sequestration in managed ecosystems. Our research efforts focus on understanding of the roles and interactions of soil structure, soil mineralogy, soil chemistry, and soil biology in soil C storage and stabilization are on-going.  This paper will focus on sharing highlights from our research on understanding physical, chemical and mineralogical processes that control soil C storage and stabilization in two agroecosystems with different levels of soil aggregation, soil C, and microbial communities.  We used traditional wet chemical methods as well as high-resolution spatially resolved synchrotron based imaging, and sensitive spectroscopic techniques in combination for our studies.