A research blueprint: Plant trait responses to stress and effects on blue carbon storage potential

Abstract

1. Wetland plants form blue carbon ecosystems, which are key for climate change mitigation yet threatened by multiple local and global stresses. The capacity of blue carbon ecosystems to store large amounts of carbon relies on ecological processes, many of them regulated by plant traits that are shaped by the stress that plants encounter.2. This manuscript provides a perspective to investigate the effects of stress on carbon storage and sequestration capacity of blue carbon ecosystems based on the plant traits.3. A first step was to identify the biochemical, physiological, morphological and growth and development traits involved in the processes controlling carbon storage and sequestration in blue carbon ecosystems.4. Second, the existing knowledge on the stress effects on blue carbon processes and ecosystems was evaluated. 5. Finally, the application of the trait-based approach to understand and predict carbon dynamics in blue carbon ecosystems under different stresses' feedback was discussed.6. The conclusions provide key recommendations for a trait-based approach in which the trinomial local and global stresses, plant traits and blue carbon are embraced together to identify the feedbacks between them, along with specific attention to the plant traits across the seascape, the stress interactions and the need of plant trait standardization.