The Patterned Mires of the Red Lake Peatland, Northern Minnesota: Vegetation, Water Chemistry and Landforms

Glaser, Paul H.; Wheeler, Gerald A.; Gorham, Eville; Wright, H. E.

doi:10.2307/2259685

Cited by 235 publications

(177 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Some previous studies have noted lower DOC concentrations in water draining natural fens compared to bogs (e.g. Glaser et al 1981;Pastor et al, 2003), although this was not particularly evident in the data collated here possibly due to the inclusion of a number of poor fen (e.g. Strack et al, 2008;Nilsson et al, 2008) and mixed mire systems in the dataset (Supplementary Table 2).…”

Section: Doc Fluxes From Natural Peatlandsmentioning

confidence: 54%

The role of waterborne carbon in the greenhouse gas balance of drained and re-wetted peatlands

2015

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Article (refereed) -postprintEvans, Chris D.; Renou-Wilson, Flo; Strack, Maria. 2016. The role of waterborne carbon in the greenhouse gas balance of drained and rewetted peatlands [in special issue: Carbon cycling in aquatic ecosystems] Aquatic Sciences, 78 (3). 573-590. 10.1007/s00027-015-0447-y Contact CEH NORA team at noraceh@ceh.ac.ukThe NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner.The role of waterborne carbon in the greenhouse gas balance of drained and re-wetted peatlands AbstractAccounting for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals in managed ecosystems has generally focused on direct land-atmosphere fluxes, but in peatlands a significant proportion of total carbon loss occurs via fluvial transport. This study considers the composition of this 'waterborne carbon' flux, its potential contribution to GHG emissions, and the extent to which it may change in response to land-management. The work describes, and builds on, a methodology to account for major components of these emissions developed for the 2013 Wetland Supplement of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We identify two major components of GHG emissions from waterbodies draining organic soil: i) 'on site' emissions of methane (and to a lesser extent CO2) from drainage ditches located within the peatland; and ii) 'off site' emissions of CO2 resulting from downstream oxidation of dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC) within the aquatic system. Methane emissions from ditches were found to be large in many cases (mean 60 g CH4 m -2 yr -1 based on all reported values), countering the view that methane emissions cease following wetland drainage. Emissions were greatest from ditches in intensive agricultural peatlands, but data were sparse and showed high variability. For DOC, the magnitude of the natural flux varied strongly with latitude, from 5 g C m -2 yr -1 in northern boreal peatlands to 60 g C m -2 yr -1 in tropical peatlands. Available data suggest that DOC fluxes increase by around 60% following drainage, and that this increase may be reversed in the longer-term through re-wetting, although variability between studies was high, especially in relation to re-wetting response. Evidence regarding the fate of DOC is complex and inconclusive, but overall suggests that the majority of DOC exported from peatlands is converted to CO2 through photo-and/or bio-degradation in rivers, standing waters and oceans. The contribution of POC export to GHG emissions is even more uncertain, but we estimate that over half of exported POC may eventually be converted to CO2. Although POC fluxes are normally small, they can become very large when bare peat surfaces are exposed to fluvial erosion. Overall, we estimate that waterborne carbon emissions may contribute about 1 to 4 t CO2-eq ha -1 yr -1 of additional GHG emissions from drained peatlands. For a number of worked examples this repres...

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Section: Doc Fluxes From Natural Peatlandsmentioning

confidence: 54%

The role of waterborne carbon in the greenhouse gas balance of drained and re-wetted peatlands

2015

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“…Adjacent hollows merge into linear flarks; (3) Subsequent enlargement of flarks. Water chemistry (Glaser 1992) and vegetation changes (Glaser et al 1981;Glaser 1987Glaser , 1992 in North American patterned fens could be explained with this hypothesis. Spatial analysis of a bog pool complex in Scotland confirmed most elements of this hypothesis (Belyea and Lancaster 2002).…”

Section: Vegetation Patterning In Peatlandsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Linking habitat modification to catastrophic shifts and vegetation patterns in bogs

et al. 2007

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Paleoecological studies indicate that peatland ecosystems may exhibit bistability. This would mean that these systems are resilient to gradual changes in climate, until environmental thresholds are passed. Then, ecosystem stability is lost and rapid shifts in surface and vegetation structure at landscape scale occur. Another remarkable feature is the commonly observed self-organized spatial vegetation patterning, such as string-flark and maze patterns. Bistability and spatial selforganization may be mechanistically linked, the crucial mechanism being scale-dependent (locally positive and longer-range negative) feedback between vegetation and the peatland environment. Focusing on bogs, a previous model study shows that nutrient accumulation by vascular plants can induce such scale-dependent feedback driving pattern formation. However, stability of bog microforms such as hummocks and hollows has been attributed to different local interactions between Sphagnum, vascular plants, and the bog environment. Here we analyze both local and longer-range interactions in bogs to investigate the possible contribution of these different interactions to vegetation patterning and stability. This is done by a literature review, and subsequently these findings are incorporated in the original model. When Sphagnum and encompassing local interactions are included in this model, the boundaries between vegetation types become sharper and also the parameter region of bistability drastically increases. These results imply that vegetation patterning and stability of bogs could be synergistically governed by local and longerrange interactions. Studying the relative effect of these interactions is therefore suggested to be an important component of future predictions on the response of peatland ecosystems to climatic changes.

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“…Many of those, like the Everglades, are lotic peatlands with surface water flow occurring for much of the year through wetlands that are large enough to maintain low nutrient status and dominantly organic soils. Lotic peatlands dominated by emergent vegetation often exhibit a flowrelated patterning; these landscapes include boreal fens (Glaser et al 1981), the Okavango Delta in Botswana (Ellery et al 2003;Gumbricht et al 2004), morichal wetlands in Columbia and Venezuela (San Jose et al 2001), buritizal wetlands in the Brazilian Pantanal, the Zapata peninsula in southern Cuba, Costa Rica's lower Tempisque River basin, and some riparian wetlands on river floodplains. Groundwater's influence in the hydrology of these large lotic wetlands has been revealed in a few instances (Siegel and Glaser 1987;McCarthy 2006;Harvey et al 2006), although a comprehensive understanding of the role of groundwater in structuring these ecosystems has only begun to emerge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater’s significance to changing hydrology, water chemistry, and biological communities of a floodplain ecosystem, Everglades, South Florida, USA

Harvey

McCormick

2008

Hydrogeol J

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The Everglades (Florida, USA) is one of the world's larger subtropical peatlands with biological communities adapted to waters low in total dissolved solids and nutrients. Detecting how the pre-drainage hydrological system has been altered is crucial to preserving its functional attributes. However, reliable tools for hindcasting historic conditions in the Everglades are limited. A recent synthesis demonstrates that the proportion of surface-water inflows has increased relative to precipitation, accounting for 33% of total inputs compared with 18% historically. The largest new source of water is canal drainage from areas of former wetlands converted to agriculture. Interactions between groundwater and surface water have also increased, due to increasing vertical hydraulic gradients resulting from topographic and water-level alterations on the otherwise extremely flat landscape. Environmental solute tracer data were used to determine groundwater's changing role, from a freshwater storage reservoir that sustained the Everglades ecosystem during dry periods to a reservoir of increasingly degraded water quality. Although some of this degradation is attributable to increased discharge of deep saline groundwater, other mineral sources such as fertilizer additives and peat oxidation have made a greater contribution to water-quality changes that are altering mineralsensitive biological communities.

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The Patterned Mires of the Red Lake Peatland, Northern Minnesota: Vegetation, Water Chemistry and Landforms

Cited by 235 publications

References 34 publications

The role of waterborne carbon in the greenhouse gas balance of drained and re-wetted peatlands

The role of waterborne carbon in the greenhouse gas balance of drained and re-wetted peatlands

Linking habitat modification to catastrophic shifts and vegetation patterns in bogs

Groundwater’s significance to changing hydrology, water chemistry, and biological communities of a floodplain ecosystem, Everglades, South Florida, USA

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