Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Decomposition Rate As An Emergent Property Of Optimal Microbial Foraging, Stefano Manzoni, Arjun Chakrawal, Glenn Ledder

Department of Mathematics: Faculty Publications

Decomposition kinetics are fundamental for quantifying carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Several theories have been proposed to construct process-based kinetics laws, but most of these theories do not consider that microbial decomposers can adapt to environmental conditions, thereby modulating decomposition. Starting from the assumption that a homogeneous microbial community maximizes its growth rate over the period of decomposition, we formalize decomposition as an optimal control problem where the decomposition rate is a control variable. When maintenance respiration is negligible, we find that the optimal decomposition kinetics scale as the square root of the substrate concentration, resulting …