Northern peatlands store ~30% of the world’s soil carbon. This carbon sequestration is due to slow decomposition, as illustrated by ancient wooden artefacts and ‘bog bodies’ preserved over millennia. Such artefacts suggest that carbon could be captured externally and stored long term in peat. However, whether such carbon would remain stable following lowered water tables is not known. Here, we show that adding woody litter results in preservation of the exogenous carbon, as well as protection of soil carbon within the host ecosystem from severe drought, as a result of leached polyphenolics. These compounds not only inhibit microbial extracellular and intracellular metabolism but also deprive microbial growth of iron and substrates such as carbon and nitrogen. Our results suggest that this technique harnesses natural ecosystem resilience mechanisms and may have implications for new carbon-farming approaches.

北部的泥炭地存储着世界30％的土壤碳。这种碳固存是由于缓慢的分解所致，正如古木制品和保存了数千年的“沼泽体”所说明的那样。这些伪像表明碳可以从外部捕获并长期储存在泥炭中。但是，这种碳在地下水位降低后是否能保持稳定尚不知道。在这里，我们表明，添加木本垃圾可以保护外源碳，并保护宿主生态系统中的土壤碳免受多酚浸出的严重干旱的影响。这些化合物不仅抑制微生物的细胞外和细胞内代谢，而且剥夺了微生物对铁和底物（如碳和氮）的生长。