Beyond microbial carbon use efficiency.

A recent study published in the journal Nature used a data-driven machine-learning approach to examine the relationship between microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) and soil organic carbon (SOC) storage. The study concluded that CUE promotes global SOC storage based on a positive correlation between CUE and SOC content. However, the study has been criticized for excluding important data sets and lacking mechanistic consideration of the complexities of SOC formation. The critics argue that the stabilization process, rather than CUE, matters more for SOC formation. They also caution against inferring causality from large data sets and emphasize the need for more sophisticated empirical measurements before establishing a globally causal link between CUE and SOC. [Extracted from the article]