Refining stoichiometric approaches to trace soil organic matter sources

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.