Soil acidification as an additional driver to organic carbon accumulation in major Chinese croplands

Significant increase in soil organic carbon (SOC) has been found in Chinese croplands. Current literature largely attributes this to the increased organic C inputs from manure, crop straw and root. However, using a meta-analysis of 185 long-term trials and 6669 spatial data pairs across China, we show here that soil acidification is an additional significant cause for the SOC accumulation. Results from long-term experiments showed that soilacidification due to excessive N fertilization coincided with, and significantly (p