Global controls on carbon storage in mangrove soils

Rovai, André Scarlate; Twilley, Robert R.; Castañeda‐Moya, Edward; Riul, Pablo; Cifuentes-Jara, Miguel; Manrow-Villalobos, Marilyn; Horta, Paulo Antunes; Simonassi, José Carlos; Fonseca, Alessandra; Pagliosa, Paulo Roberto

doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0162-5

Cited by 233 publications

(191 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Although our estimate of the global mangrove SOC budget was similar to those of previous studies (2.4 Pg C in Rovai et al . ; 2.6 Pg C in Atwood et al . ), we found that mangrove SOC stocks varied markedly across different types of coastal environmental settings, increasing from river‐dominated to tide/wave‐dominated to carbonate coastlines.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…These categories were assigned to sites based on information specified in independent studies or based on visual inspection using Google Earth when classification was not provided (see Rovai et al . for details). We assigned categories to these sites based on an independent modeled global classification of nearshore coastal system typologies described above (Dürr et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We focus on SOC stocks because most of the C in mangrove ecosystems is stored in this compartment, where it remains stable for much longer than the C stored in aboveground biomass. To demonstrate the utility of a coastal environmental settings approach to scale up mangrove properties from the site level to the global level, we used a dataset that combined published and unpublished data representing the diversity of coastal settings where mangroves thrive (Rovai et al 2018). This dataset consisted of depth-integrated (top meter) mangrove SOC density values derived from 107 studies reporting on 551 sites in 43 countries (WebTable 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each site in this dataset was previously classified into distinct coastal environmental settings according to a conceptual model (Thom 1982 for details); Thom's (1982) conceptual model took into consideration prevailing coastal geomorphological features such as the presence or absence of rivers, embayments, lagoons, barrier islands, chenier plains (longshore sandy or shelly beach ridges), and carbonate substrates. These categories were assigned to sites based on information specified in independent studies or based on visual inspection using Google Earth when classification was not provided (see Rovai et al [2018] for details). We assigned categories to these sites based on an independent modeled global classification of nearshore coastal system typologies described above (Dürr et al 2011).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coastal morphology explains global blue carbon distributions

Twilley

Rovai

Riul

2018

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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126

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Because mangroves store greater amounts of carbon (C) per area than any other terrestrial ecosystem, conservation of mangrove forests on a global scale represents a potentially meaningful strategy for mitigating atmospheric greenhouse‐gas (GHG) emissions. However, analyses of how coastal ecosystems influence the global C cycle also require the mapping of ecosystem area across the Earth's surface to estimate C storage and flux (movement) in order to compare how different ecosystem types may mitigate GHG enrichment in the atmosphere. In this paper, we propose a new framework based on diverse coastal morphology (that is, different coastal environmental settings resulting from how rivers, tides, waves, and climate have shaped coastal landforms) to explain global variations in mangrove C storage, using soil organic carbon (SOC) as a model to more accurately determine mangrove contributions to global C dynamics. We present, to the best of our knowledge, the first global mangrove area estimate occupying distinct coastal environmental settings, comparing the role of terrigenous and carbonate settings as global “blue carbon” hotspots. C storage in deltaic settings has been overestimated, while SOC stocks in carbonate settings have been underestimated by up to 50%. We encourage the scientific community, which has largely focused on blue carbon estimates, to incorporate coastal environmental settings into their evaluations of C stocks, to obtain more robust estimates of global C stocks.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coastal morphology explains global blue carbon distributions

Twilley

Rovai

Riul

2018

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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126

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“…One recently suggested tool to help understand the inherent variability in systems is to explicitly consider background coastal environmental setting (e.g. see the example of CES on mangrove carbon stocks; Rovai et al, ). A similar approach could be warranted when trying to understand why some seaweed assemblages appear to be more susceptible to degradation than others in a different CES (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decadal losses of canopy‐forming algae along the warm temperate coastline of Brazil

Gorman

Horta

Flores

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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The loss of canopy‐forming seaweeds from urbanized coasts has intensified in response to warming seas and non‐climatic pressures such as population growth and declining water quality. Surprisingly, there has been little information on the extent of historical losses in the South‐western Atlantic, which limits our ability to place this large marine ecosystem in a global context. Here, we use meta‐analysis to examine long‐term (1969–2017) changes to the cover and biomass of Sargassum spp. and structurally simple algal turfs along more than 1,000 kilometres of Brazil's warm temperate coastline. Analysis revealed major declines in canopy cover that were independent of season (i.e., displaying similar trends for both summer and winter) but varied with coastal environmental setting, whereby sheltered bays experienced greater losses than coastal locations. On average, covers of Sargassum spp. declined by 2.6% per year, to show overall losses of 52% since records began (ranging from 20% to 89%). This contrasted with increases in the cover of filamentous turfs (24% over the last 27 years) which are known to proliferate along human‐impacted coasts. To test the relative influence of climatic versus non‐climatic factors as drivers of this apparent canopy‐to‐turf shift, we examined how well regional warming trends (decadal changes to sea surface temperature) and local proxies of coastal urbanization (population density, thermal pollution, turbidity and nutrient inputs) were able to predict the changes in seaweed communities. Our results revealed that the most pronounced canopy losses over the past 50 years were at sites exhibiting the greatest degree of coastal warming, the highest population growth and those located in semi‐enclosed sheltered bays. These findings contribute knowledge on the drivers of canopy loss in the South‐western Atlantic and join with global efforts to understand and mitigate declines of marine keystone species.

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