Congratulations Kyle!!! (love the soil mates 🤣🥰)

Thank you for sharing Brian!

Link to submit your abstract: lnkd.in/gkDzqqaX

I'd love that! I'm based in Paris. Would that work for you?

🙏 co-authors: @scott-saleska.bsky.social , Steve Allison, Philippe Ciais, @chopinyang.bsky.social , Mike Weintraub and Régis Ferrière.

6. Conclusion

Microbial eco-evolution could destabilize soil carbon.
Models that ignore it risk underestimating climate-carbon feedbacks.
We hope this work opens the door to more theory-driven, evolution-aware Earth system models. (7/7)

5. Global heterogeneity of the eco-evolutionary effect

We wondered if we could replace eco-evolution with a constant correction. Answer: no. Its effect is uneven—negligible in warm regions, but up to 2× more soil C loss in cold ones. Why? Optimal enzyme allocation responds nonlinearly. (6/7)

4. Implication for global soil C projections

We thought that microbial adaptation would buffer warming-induced soil C loss. But because it amplifies enzyme production (as shown above), we found that adaptation aggravates the loss—by x1.8 globally. (5/7)

3. Experimental validation

We reviewed 13 warming studies:
✅ 9 matched our predictions (6 eco-evolution, 3 physio)
❌ 3 didn’t show increased enzyme production (though evidence was weaker).
Overall, warming tends to increase microbial investment in resource acquisition. (4/7)

2. Evolutionary result

We found that in hostile environments (e.g. high mortality, slow uptake), selection favors direct investment in biomass over the riskier strategy of enzyme production. Since warming mainly increases uptake rate, we predicted it would favor stronger enzyme producers. (3/7)

1. The eco-evolutionary model

We added a trade-off to a classic microbe-soil C model and used adaptive dynamics to evolve enzyme allocation. To prevent freeloaders from taking over, we included implicit spatial structure. Bonus: enzyme production emerges—it’s no longer a free parameter. (2/7)

🙏 co-authors: @scott-saleska.bsky.social, Steve Allison, Philippe Ciais, @chopinyang.bsky.social, Mike Weintraub and Régis Ferrière.

6. Conclusion

Microbial eco-evolution could destabilize soil carbon.
Models that ignore it risk underestimating climate-carbon feedbacks.
We hope this work opens the door to more theory-driven, evolution-aware Earth system models. (7/7)

5. Global heterogeneity of the eco-evolutionary effect

We wondered if we could replace eco-evolution with a constant correction. Answer: no. Its effect is uneven—negligible in warm regions, but up to 2× more soil C loss in cold ones. Why? Optimal enzyme allocation responds nonlinearly. (6/7)

4. Implication for global soil C projections

We thought that microbial adaptation would buffer warming-induced soil C loss. But because it amplifies enzyme production (as shown above), we found that adaptation aggravates the loss—by x1.8 globally. (5/7)

3. Experimental validation

We reviewed 13 warming studies:
✅ 9 matched our predictions (6 eco-evolution, 3 physio)
❌ 3 didn’t show increased enzyme production (though evidence was weaker).
Overall, warming tends to increase microbial investment in resource acquisition. (4/7)

2. Evolutionary result

We found that in hostile environments (e.g. high mortality, slow uptake), selection favors direct investment in biomass over the riskier strategy of enzyme production. Since warming mainly increases uptake rate, we predicted it would favor stronger enzyme producers. (3/7)

1. The eco-evolutionary model

We added a trade-off to a classic microbe-soil C model and used adaptive dynamics to evolve enzyme allocation. To prevent freeloaders from taking over, we included implicit spatial structure. Bonus: enzyme production emerges—it’s no longer a free parameter. (2/7)