RECOUP-Moor: Restoring Ecosystem CarbOn Uptake of Post-fire Moorland

北部泥炭地是重要的陆地碳(C)储存库；据估计，它们以缓慢积累的未分解植物材料泥炭的形式储存了全球土壤碳储存量的六分之一。抗腐烂植物凋落物的产生，再加上微生物代谢活动的限制，导致泥炭地成为长期的碳汇。然而，野火等干扰会破坏这种天然碳汇，并对泥炭地的栖息地范围和水资源质量造成长期的负面影响。最近，在不到两周的时间里，萨德尔沃斯沼泽野火吞噬了1000公顷含有大量碳的泥炭地。这些碳以前被锁在泥炭地，现在又重新进入大气层，在那里它直接导致了全球变暖。这场大火的影响将进一步波及未来，因为野火已经根除了植物，最有可能的是微生物群落，它们共同在泥炭地土壤碳储量的建立中发挥着核心作用。鉴于这些影响，为了将火灾的有害影响限制在直接损失大量碳库之外，重要的是迅速重新启动火灾后泥炭地的碳吸收功能，并将该生态系统恢复到火灾前的状态。以前对以前农业土壤的研究(WUBS等人。2016年；自然植物2：16107)表明，使用从附近自然目标群落土壤中提取的微生物接种，可以加速农业前植物群落的恢复。如果这些发现是普遍的，在火灾后的泥炭地接种来自天然泥炭生境的微生物群落可以用来加快植物群落的恢复，甚至将重新植被的轨迹引导到以前已经消失的植物群落(例如，山顶地区以泥炭苔藓为主的群落)。因此，接种泥炭土壤可能会加速支撑泥炭地碳汇功能的生态系统过程的恢复。RECOUP-Moor将探索火灾的影响，以及土壤接种物在恢复过程中的作用，旨在回答以下问题：1.野火如何影响泥炭地微生物生命？在这里，我们将确定火灾对植物和微生物群落组成的直接影响，以及不同强度的火灾如何影响微生物活动和生态系统过程，如二氧化碳同化、呼吸、甲烷营养和产甲烷，以及溶解有机碳的产生。2.我们能否利用土壤接种来加速泥炭生态系统的恢复？我们的项目将进行一项创新的、史无前例的实验，我们将在火灾后的泥炭地上接种来自相邻完整(即未燃烧)泥炭地的泥炭微生物接种，以测试这种恢复行动是否可以加速生态系统的恢复，重点是与碳相关的过程。这项名为Recoup-Moor的研究项目将为实践者带来突破性的解决方案，因为它将提供关于土壤接种作为一种恢复技术的有效性的基本知识，其目标是在严重干扰后快速恢复固碳植被。测试这一新的“恢复工具箱”的应用将允许土地管理者、保护机构和政策制定者在受到干扰后指导恢复，也有助于退化的泥炭地的全面恢复。这将通过改善泥炭地生态系统的质量，有利于栖息地的创造、气候变化的缓解和水资源管理。

Northern peatlands are important terrestrial carbon (C) stores; they are estimated to store one-sixth of the global soil carbon stock in the form of slowly accumulated non-decomposed plant material, peat. The production of decay-resistant plant litter, in combination with constrained microbial metabolic activity, has resulted in peatlands being long-term C sinks. However, disturbances such as wildfires can damage this natural carbon sink, and lead to long-term negative impacts on the range of habitats and water-resource qualities of peatlands. Recently, in a period of less than two weeks, the Saddleworth Moor wildfire has consumed 1000 ha of peatland that contained a substantial amount of carbon. This carbon, previously locked away in the peatland, has re-entered the atmosphere where it directly contributes to global warming. The effects of the fire ripple further into the future as the wildfire has eradicated the plant and, most likely, the microbial community, which together play a central role in building up the soil carbon stock in the peatland. Given these impacts, and to limit the detrimental effects of the fire beyond the direct loss of a significant carbon pool, it is important to rapidly re-initiate the carbon uptake functions of post-fire peatlands, and restore this ecosystem to a pre-fire state. A previous study on former agricultural soils (Wubs et al. 2016; Nature Plants 2:16107) has shown that the restoration of pre-agricultural plant communities can be accelerated using microbial inoculates from soils taken from natural target communities nearby. If these findings are universal, inoculation of post-fire peatlands with microbial communities from natural peatland habitats can be used to speed up the recovery of the plant community, and even steer trajectories of re-vegetation to plant communities that have previously been lost (e.g. peat moss dominated communities in the Peak district). Peat soil inoculation may thus accelerate the recovery of ecosystem processes that underpin the carbon sink function of peatlands.RECOUP-Moor will explore the impacts of fire, and the role of soil inoculates in recovery, aiming to answer the following questions:1. How has wildfire impacted on peatland microbial life?Here, we will identify the immediate effect of the fire on the composition of the plant and microbial communities and how the fire with different intensities have affected microbial activity and ecosystem processes such as carbon dioxide assimilation, respiration, methanotrophy and methanogenesis, and the production of dissolved organic carbon. 2. Can we speed-up recovery of the peatland ecosystem using soil inoculates?Our project will run an innovative and unprecedented experiment where we inoculate the post-fire peatland subjected to disparate fire intensities with peat microbial inoculates from adjacent intact (i.e. unburned) peatlands to test whether such restoration actions can speed-up the recovery of the ecosystem, with emphasis on carbon-related processes.This research project, RECOUP-Moor, will bring a breakthrough solution to practitioners, as it will provide essential knowledge on the effectiveness of soil inoculates as a restoration technique that targets the rapid recovery of carbon sequestering vegetation after severe disturbance. Testing the application of this new 'restoration toolbox' will allow land managers, conservation bodies, and policy makers to direct restoration after disturbance, and also aid in general restoration of degraded peatlands. This will benefit habitat creation, and climate-change mitigation and water-resource management through improving the quality of peatland ecosystems.