Statistical traps lurk in the research of soil carbon dynamics

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an essential role in sequestrating anthropogenic CO₂ emissions and mitigating climate change. Hence, accurate knowledge of the SOC dynamics and its controlling factors is a key part of the soil carbon cycling. Slessarev et al. (2022) question the major role of initial SOC in mediating changes in SOC, and illustrate the possible statistical artifacts that might be erroneously interpreted as causal. Slessarev and colleagues' insights make an important advance in the statistical evaluation of the regression problems in SOC, yielding more accurate inference.