Overriding water table control on managed peatland greenhouse gas emissions

Abstract

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Come Rain, Come Shine: Peatland Carbon Dynamics Shift Under Extreme Precipitation

“…Under natural conditions hydraulic lift and biological activity from deeper layers would contribute to the overall response. Nevertheless, WTD changes in the top 10 cm are considered relevant for peatland C dynamics (Evans et al, 2021). Our findings highlight the importance of WTD fluctuations under shifting rainfall patterns in addition to mean WTD in driving peatland C dynamics, and that short-term changes in conditions may have lasting effects.…”

“…Peatland C stocks are vulnerable to ongoing climatic change (Dise 2009) and especially to hydrological shifts (Swindles et al, 2019). Hydrological shifts such as caused by extreme rainfall patterns or drought threaten peatland C dynamics (Radu and Duval, 2018b;Evans et al, 2021), pushing peatlands toward becoming a C source by increasing decomposition rates (Belyea, 1996;Moore et al, 2007) and CO 2 respiration (Lund et al, 2012;Helfter et al, 2015) and reducing CO 2 uptake (Kuiper et al, 2014;Helfter et al, 2015). As a consequence of extreme drought, methanogenesis may decrease while methanotrophy increases, thus reducing CH 4 emissions Turetsky et al, 2014;Evans et al, 2021).…”

Editorial: Wetland Ecology and Biogeochemistry Under Natural and Human Disturbance

“…In order to re-establish key wetland functions, various restoration methods have been put forward and evaluated in the literature (e.g., Taft et al, 2018;Wen et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2020;Evans et al, 2021), and several special methods have been proposed and studied by several contributed papers in this special issue. One common restoration method is rewetting (i.e.…”

Mosses are Important for Soil Carbon Sequestration in Forested Peatlands

“…This shows that the trees need to be sparse enough to reduce evapotranspiration, to be able to raise the WT (Sarkkola et al, 2010). There is a large need to stop unsustainable land use and reduce global GHG emissions and thus the aim should be to raise the WT high enough, at least to a level of 30 cm but best would be 10 cm below the surface, for obtaining minimized GHG losses (Kasimir et al, 2018;Evans et al, 2021). Thus for protection of peat, both rewetting and more wetland-adapted plants are of need.…”

“…The peat soil is formed by a litter production slightly larger than its decomposition (Frolking et al, 2001), and many factors influence the balance of soil accumulation and decomposition, mainly climate and water conditions, alongside soil fertility forming the plant community (Waddington and Roulet, 1996;Alm et al, 1997;Laiho et al, 2003). Climate warming and soil drain operations dry out the peat causing decomposition and large increase in greenhouse gas emissions, why there is an urgent need to manage the peatlands in a way that preserve the carbon (Huang et al, 2021), where the main tool is to raise the soil water table (Evans et al, 2021). The photosynthesis is an important part of the carbon budget, where mosses and lichens should not to be neglected besides vascular plants in model studies of cool climate and nutrient limiting conditions (Chadburn et al, 2017).…”