Antibiotic drugs administered on livestock cut carbon in soil and affect climate, says IISc

Subject: Environment

Concept:

In a study conducted in the Spiti region of the Himalayas by the researchers of the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), it was found that grazing by livestock leads to lower carbon storage in soil compared to grazing by wild herbivores.
According to the researchers, the difference in carbon storage is mainly on account of the use of veterinary antibiotics such as tetracycline on livestock.
It was found that when antibiotics are released into the soil in the form of dung and urine, they alter the microbial communities in the soil which can be detrimental to carbon sequestering and can impact climate mitigation.
In a previous study, it was observed that herbivores play a key role in stabilizing the pool of soil carbon in a region and the recent study showcases the difference as to how they affect the soil carbon stocks between livestock such as sheep and cattle compared to their wild herbivores such as the yak and ibex.
As per the latest study, despite the soils from the wild and livestock areas having many similarities, they differ mainly in one key parameter named carbon use efficiency (CUE).

Carbon use efficiency

Carbon use efficiency (CUE) is a key measure of carbon (C) transfer from the atmosphere to terrestrial biomass, and indirectly reflects how much carbon is released through autotrophic respiration from the vegetation to the atmosphere.
Carbon use efficiency (CUE) determines the ability of microbes to store carbon in the soil.
The soil in the livestock areas had 19% lower CUE as antibiotics such as tetracycline can affect the microbial activity in the soil and can linger in the soil for a long period of time.