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Landscape Change Affects Soil Organic Carbon Mineralization and Greenhouse Gas Production in Coastal Wetlands

Ping Yang Orcid Logo, Linhai Zhang, Derrick Y. F. Lai Orcid Logo, Hong Yang Orcid Logo, Lishan Tan Orcid Logo, Liangjuan Luo, Chuan Tong, Yan Hong, Wanyi Zhu, Kam Tang Orcid Logo

Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Volume: 36, Issue: 12

Swansea University Author: Kam Tang Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1029/2022gb007469

Abstract

Plant invasion and aquaculture activities have drastically modified the landscape of coastal wetlands in many countries, but their impacts on soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralization and greenhouse gas production remain poorly understood. We measured SOC mineralization rate and soil CO2 and CH4 prod...

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Published in: Global Biogeochemical Cycles
ISSN: 0886-6236 1944-9224
Published: American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2022
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa62131
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Abstract: Plant invasion and aquaculture activities have drastically modified the landscape of coastal wetlands in many countries, but their impacts on soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralization and greenhouse gas production remain poorly understood. We measured SOC mineralization rate and soil CO2 and CH4 production rates in three habitat types from 21 coastal sites across the tropical and subtropical zones in China: native mudflats (MFs), Spartina alterniflora marshes (SAs) and aquaculture ponds (APs). Landscape change from MFs to SAs or APs increased total and labile fraction of SOC, as well as carbon mineralization rate and greenhouse gas production, but there were no discernible differences in SOC source-sink dynamics between SAs and APs. SOC mineralization rate was highest in SAs (20.4 μg g-1 d-1), followed by APs (16.9 μg g-1 d-1) and MFs (11.9 μg g-1 d-1), with CO2 as the dominant by-product. Bioavailable SOC was less than 2% and was turned over within 60 days in all three habitat types. Proliferation of S. alterniflora marshes and expansion of aquaculture pond construction had resulted in a net increase in soil CO2-eq production of 0.4–4.3 Tg yr-1 in the last three decades. Future studies will benefit from better census and monitoring of coastal habitats in China, complementary in situ measurements of greenhouse gas emissions, and more sampling in the southern provinces to improve spatial resolution.
Keywords: soil organic carbon (SOC); anaerobic carbon mineralization; coastal wetland; Spartina alterniflora invasion; aquaculture reclamation; habitat modification
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China. Grant Numbers: 41801070, 41671088 National Science Foundation of Fujian Province. Grant Numbers: 2020J01136, 2019J05067 Minjiang Scholar Programme
Issue: 12