Agricultural fertilizers help increase food production but also release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This research investigates conservation agriculture practices that support beneficial soil microbes capable of reducing these emissions, enabling sustainable food production while limiting agriculture’s contribution to climate change.

This research develops stable-isotope tools to measure how microbes—the Earth’s “lungs”—breathe CO₂ in and out. Microbes are massively abundant and shape global climate. Findings show deep subsurface environments slowly emit CO₂, a process that may influence future climate dynamics as human-driven environmental changes accelerate.