In their Letter‐to‐Editor, Liu & Chen (2024) raised the importance and suitability of our recent stoichiometric approach to assess the contribution of plant residue (litter) and microbial sources to mineral‐associated organic matter (MAOM). We highly appreciate their Letter as well as the further suggestion and comments and offer two points of clarification. We call for staying aware of methodological benefits and limitations of each approach, and further develop and compare multiple methods to develop a clearer picture of where and to what extent MAOM is formed from direct vs. indirect (via the microbial funnel) plant inputs.

中文翻译：

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完善追踪土壤有机质来源的化学计量方法


在给编辑的信中，Liu 和 Chen (2024) 提出了我们最近使用化学计量方法来评估植物残留物（凋落物）和微生物来源对矿物相关有机物 (MAOM) 的贡献的重要性和适用性。我们高度赞赏他们的来信以及进一步的建议和评论，并提供两点澄清。我们呼吁时刻了解每种方法的方法学优势和局限性，并进一步开发和比较多种方法，以更清楚地了解直接与间接（通过微生物漏斗）植物输入形成 MAOM 的位置和程度。