Seagrass Abundance Predicts Surficial Soil Organic Carbon Stocks Across the Range of Thalassia testudinum in the Western North Atlantic
Seagrass Abundance Predicts Surficial Soil Organic Carbon Stocks Across the Range of Thalassia testudinum in the Western North Atlantic
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DOI：
10.1007/s12237-023-01210-0
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发表时间：
2023-05-11
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Wilson, Sara S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fourqurean, James W.;Campbell, Justin E.;Wilson, Sara S.
The organic carbon (C-org) stored in seagrass meadows is globally significant and could be relevant in strategies to mitigate increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Most of that stored C-org is in the soils that underlie the seagrasses. We explored how seagrass and soil characteristics vary among seagrass meadows across the geographic range of turtlegrass (Thalassia testudinum) with a goal of illuminating the processes controlling soil organic carbon (C-org) storage spanning 23 degrees of latitude. Seagrass abundance (percent cover, biomass, and canopy height) varied by over an order of magnitude across sites, and we found high variability in soil characteristics, with C-org ranging from 0.08 to 12.59% dry weight. Seagrass abundance was a good predictor of the C-org stocks in surficial soils, and the relative importance of seagrass-derived soil C-org increased as abundance increased. These relationships suggest that first-order estimates of surficial soil C-org stocks can be made by measuring seagrass abundance and applying a linear transfer function. The relative availability of the nutrients N and P to support plant growth was also correlated with soil C-org stocks. Stocks were lower at N-limited sites than at P-limited ones, but the importance of seagrass-derived organic matter to soil C-org stocks was not a function of nutrient limitation status. This finding seemed at odds with our observation that labile standard substrates decomposed more slowly at N-limited than at P-limited sites, since even though decomposition rates were 55% lower at N-limited sites, less C-org was accumulating in the soils. The dependence of C-org stocks and decomposition rates on nutrient availability suggests that eutrophication is likely to exert a strong influence on carbon storage in seagrass meadows.
