Temperature optimum for marsh resilience and carbon accumulation revealed in a whole‐ecosystem warming experiment

Smith, Alexander J.; Noyce, Genevieve L.; Megonigal, J. Patrick; Guntenspergen, Glenn R.; Kirwan, Matthew L.

doi:10.1111/gcb.16149

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…Given that China's mangroves are located in the tropical and subtropical coasts, we believe that there is an optimal metabolic temperature for mangrove forests in carbon sequestration with a warming climate, and the SOC stock would decrease once the temperature is higher than the metabolic optimum of mangrove forests. This optimal metabolic temperature has been demonstrated in local tidal marsh and mangrove ecosystems based on field experiments in previous studies (Coldren et al., 2016; Smith et al., 2022).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

China's conservation and restoration of coastal wetlands offset much of the reclamation‐induced blue carbon losses

Fan,

2023

Global Change Biology

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China's coastal wetlands have experienced large losses and gains with rapid coastal reclamation and restoration since the end of the 20th century. However, owing to the difficulties in mapping soil organic carbon (SOC) in blue carbon stocks of coastal wetlands on a national scale, little is known about the spatial pattern of SOC stock in China's coastal wetlands and the loss and gain of SOC stock following coastal reclamation, conservation, and restoration over the past decades. Here, we developed a SOC stock map in China's coastal wetlands at 30 m spatial resolution, analyzed the spatial variability and driving factors of SOC stocks, and finally estimated SOC losses and gains due to coastal reclamation and wetland management from 1990 to 2020. We found that the total SOC stocks in China's coastal wetlands were 77.8 Tg C by 2020 with 3.6 Tg C in mangroves, 8.8 Tg C in salt marshes, and 65.4 Tg C in mudflats. Temperature, rainfall, and seawater salinity exerted the highest relative contributions to SOC spatial variability. The spatial trend of SOC density gradually decreased from south to north except for Liaoning province, with the lowest density in Shandong province. About 24.9% (19.4 Tg C) of SOC stocks in China's coastal wetlands were lost due to high‐intensity reclamation, but SOC stock gained from conservation and restoration offset the reclamation‐induced losses by 58.2% (11.3 Tg C) over the past three decades. These findings demonstrated the great potential of conservation and restoration of coastal wetlands in reversing the loss trend of blue carbon and contributing to the mitigation of climate change toward carbon neutrality. Our study provides significant spatial insights into the stocks, sequestration, and recovery capacity of blue carbon following rapid urbanization and management actions, which benefit the progress of global blue carbon management.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

China's conservation and restoration of coastal wetlands offset much of the reclamation‐induced blue carbon losses

Fan,

2023

Global Change Biology

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“…S4). This finding goes against the hypothesis that higher temperatures are generally associated with higher SOC 29 , due to the increase of productivity and growth of vegetation 30 . Instead, the lower soil temperature could limit SOC breakdown enhancing its storage potential 30 , or more generally temperature could be a weak driver at the global scale 31 .…”

Section: Global Distribution Of Tidal Marsh Soil Organic Carboncontrasting

confidence: 65%

Soil carbon in the world’s tidal marshes

Maxwell,

Spalding,

Friess

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Tidal marshes are threatened coastal ecosystems known for their capacity to store large amounts of carbon in their water-logged soils. Accurate quantification and mapping of global tidal marshes soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks is of considerable value to conservation efforts. Here, we used training data from 3,710 unique locations, landscape-level environmental drivers and a newly developed global tidal marsh extent map to produce the first global, spatially-explicit map of SOC storage in tidal marshes at 30 m resolution. We estimate the total global SOC stock to 1 m to be 1.44 Pg C, with a third of this value stored in the United States of America. On average, SOC in tidal marshes' 0-30 and 30-100 cm soil layers are estimated at 83.1 Mg C ha-1(average predicted error 44.8 Mg C ha-1) and 185.3 Mg C ha-1(average predicted error 105.7 Mg C ha-1), respectively. Our spatially-explicit model is able to capture 59% of the variability in SOC density, with elevation being the strongest driver aside from soil depth. Our study reveals regions with high prediction uncertainty and therefore highlights the need for more targeted sampling to fully capture SOC spatial variability.

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“…These sources are repeatedly disturbed and any remaining carbon is recalcitrant and tightly bound to sediment 41 . Although both autochthonous carbon production and decomposition will be altered with a changing climate 42,43 , the nonlinear interactions between temperature, CO 2 , and nutrients are complex and beyond the scope of this model. Therefore, we do not capture all climate-carbon feedbacks but focus solely on the climate effect of SLR.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-driven tradeoffs between landscape connectivity and the maintenance of the coastal carbon sink

et al. 2023

Self Cite

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Ecosystem connectivity tends to increase the resilience and function of ecosystems responding to stressors. Coastal ecosystems sequester disproportionately large amounts of carbon, but rapid exchange of water, nutrients, and sediment makes them vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal erosion. Individual components of the coastal landscape (i.e., marsh, forest, bay) have contrasting responses to sea level rise, making it difficult to forecast the response of the integrated coastal carbon sink. Here we couple a spatially-explicit geomorphic model with a point-based carbon accumulation model, and show that landscape connectivity, in-situ carbon accumulation rates, and the size of the landscape-scale coastal carbon stock all peak at intermediate sea level rise rates despite divergent responses of individual components. Progressive loss of forest biomass under increasing sea level rise leads to a shift from a system dominated by forest biomass carbon towards one dominated by marsh soil carbon that is maintained by substantial recycling of organic carbon between marshes and bays. These results suggest that climate change strengthens connectivity between adjacent coastal ecosystems, but with tradeoffs that include a shift towards more labile carbon, smaller marsh and forest extents, and the accumulation of carbon in portions of the landscape more vulnerable to sea level rise and erosion.

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Temperature optimum for marsh resilience and carbon accumulation revealed in a whole‐ecosystem warming experiment

Cited by 23 publications

References 88 publications

China's conservation and restoration of coastal wetlands offset much of the reclamation‐induced blue carbon losses

China's conservation and restoration of coastal wetlands offset much of the reclamation‐induced blue carbon losses

Soil carbon in the world’s tidal marshes

Climate-driven tradeoffs between landscape connectivity and the maintenance of the coastal carbon sink

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