Fig 3.
(A) Microbial metabolic activities expressed as the ratio of the soil respiration rate (SR; g of CO2-C kg−1 day−1) to microbial biomass carbon (MBC; g kg−1). (B) Labile carbon use efficiency by microbes expressed as the ratio of MBC to labile organic carbon (LOC; g kg−1). (C) Recalcitrant carbon use efficiency by microbes expressed as the ratio of MBC to recalcitrant organic carbon (RO-C; g kg−1) for tested subtropical wetland soils (i.e., YT, XZ, and XX) under experimental warming. Error bars show +1 standard deviation. Asterisks represent significant Student's t test differences between warmed and control samples (*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01).