Coupled Carbon and Nutrient Cycling in Managed Agroecosystems: Biogeochemical Processes Driving Soil Carbon Storage and Climate Resilience

Soils regulate the coupled cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus that underpins productivity, nutrient supply, and climate regulation in agroecosystems. Under intensive management, land-use change, and a warming climate, these biogeochemical cycles are being reshaped: soil organic carbon is lost, nutrient stoichiometry is disrupted, nutrient-use efficiency declines, and greenhouse gas emissions rise. Because carbon and nutrient dynamics are mechanistically linked — through microbial activity, mineral–organic interactions, and organic-matter turnover — managing them in isolation often yields limited or contradictory outcomes. Understanding how tillage, residues, organic amendments, and cropping systems alter the coupled biogeochemistry of soils is therefore central to sustaining fertility while stabilizing carbon. This Research Topic frames soil carbon storage and climate resilience as emergent outcomes of these underlying carbon–nutrient cycling processes.Agricultural systems face mounting challenges from declining soil organic matter, disrupted nutrient cycles, rising greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing climate variability, which together threaten food security and the long-term productivity of agroecosystems worldwide. Addressing them requires treating soils as coupled carbon–nutrient systems: how carbon and nutrient (N, P) cycling interact determines whether management builds or depletes soil organic carbon and sustains fertility. This Research Topic aims to advance mechanistic understanding of these coupled biogeochemical processes and to connect them to soil carbon stabilization, sequestration, and climate resilience. Recent advances in isotopic tracing, molecular characterization of soil organic matter, high-resolution greenhouse gas flux measurements, and process-based modeling now allow these couplings to be quantified across scales and linked to microbial and organic-amendment pathways such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, biochar, and compost. We aim to identify the biogeochemical levers that jointly improve nutrient-use efficiency, stabilize carbon, and reduce emissions.This Research Topic welcomes contributions that investigate the coupled carbon and nutrient cycling processes underlying soil carbon storage and climate resilience in agroecosystems. Relevant themes include, but are not limited to: (a) coupled carbon–nutrient (C:N:P) cycling, stoichiometry, and nutrient-use efficiency under different management; (b) soil organic carbon dynamics, stabilization mechanisms, and sequestration pathways; (c) nutrient cycling, mobility, distribution, and reuse, including organic amendments (biochar, compost); (d) microbially mediated carbon and nutrient processes (e.g., arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, glomalin); (e) greenhouse gas fluxes and mitigation mechanisms; (f) effects of conservation and regenerative practices, residues, and cover crops on soil biogeochemical cycling; and (g) climate-change impacts on soil biogeochemical processes. We encourage field, laboratory, isotopic, molecular, and modeling studies, and welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Methods, Hypothesis and Theory, and Data Report articles. Topic editors: Prithwiraj Dey, Richa Agnihotri, Abhishek Kumar Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84016/coupled-carbon-and-nutrient-cycling-in-managed-agroecosystems-biogeochemical-processes-driving-soil-carbon-storage-and-climate-resilience