Résumé
Rhizodeposits, defined here as any organic materials released by living roots, can representup to 15% of net amount of carbon (C) photosynthesized by a plant (Pausch and Kuzyakov,2018). Rhizodeposits have been shown to play an important role in plant growth throughvarious mechanisms (e.g. by favoring water uptake through mucilage secretion, or nutrientuptake through the exudation of soluble compounds), and to represent a major contributor tothe formation of stable soil organic matter - and thus to the mitigation of climate changethrough soil C sequestration. Decomposing rhizodeposition into its elementary processes (e.g.exudation, mucilage secretion, cells sloughing) is required for a better understanding of theresponse of rhizodeposition to various environmental constraints and of its associated-benefits. While many works have attempted to quantify the exudation of soluble organiccompounds at the scale of a plant or the net rhizodeposition of C in soils, very few studieshave been able to estimate the amount of mucilage or sloughed cells released by a whole rootsystem over time. Consequently, while it has been claimed that the amount of soluble organicC is much higher than the amount of C released as mucilage or sloughed cells by roots(Nguyen, 2003; Rees et al. 2005), the relative importance of distinct rhizodeposition processesin plant’s and soil’s C balance remains largely unknown. While the comparison of mucilagesecretion and citrate exudation within a FSPM has been recently attempted (Landl et al. 2021),no model has been developed so far for simulating such rhizodeposition processes as part ofplant’s C management. The present work aimed to give a better assessment of thecontribution of distinct rhizodeposition processes to the total amount of organic C released byroots, for different plant species, growth stages and environments