Claire Chenu

Research Statement

AI generated · 1d ago

Claire Chenu's indexed work centers on how organic matter controls clay wettability and soil aggregate stability, a line of inquiry opened by her first-author study linking organo-mineral interactions to structural persistence. Her senior-author contributions extend this into carbon cycling, notably the moisture response of soil heterotrophic respiration and its interaction with soil properties, which with a companion 2013 synthesis (over 1,000 citations) helped frame how water availability regulates decomposition in models. Related work examines whether topsoil and subsoil carbon are governed by distinct regulatory mechanisms, and reviews the potential for increasing organic carbon stocks in agricultural soils. Beyond these lead-author themes, Chenu contributed as a middle author to broad syntheses, including the knowns and unknowns of soil organic carbon sequestration and a review of the interplay between microbial communities and soil properties. Her later collaborative work addresses particulate organic matter as a functional component for persistent soil carbon and methods for isolating organic carbon fractions with varying turnover rates, the latter involving Carsten W. Mueller. No software, datasets, patents, or grants are indexed beyond her publications. Across these works, her contribution traces a consistent arc: from clay-scale organo-mineral interfaces to the measurement and modeling of soil carbon at field and global scales.

Most Cited Works

The interplay between microbial communities and soil properties

Laurent Philippot, Claire Chenu, Andreas Kappler, Matthias C Rillig, Noah Fierer

Nature Reviews Microbiology2023

1,462Citations

Carbon sequestration in soils and climate change mitigation—Definitions and pitfalls

Axel Don, Felix Seidel, Jens Leifeld, Thomas Kätterer, Manuel Martin, Sylvain Pellerin, David Emde, Daria Seitz, Claire Chenu

Global Change Biology

Research Areas

Soil Carbon and Nitrogen DynamicsSoil erosion and sediment transportSoil Management and Crop YieldSoil Geostatistics and MappingSoil and Unsaturated Flow

Affiliations & Education

Employment

2020–present· now
INRAE(FR)
Directeur de recherche / senior scientist · UMR ECOSYS

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