Quantifying the impact of restoration on peatland aquatic organic matter, microbial communities and greenhouse gas emissions

我们处于气候紧急状态。减少温室气体排放不足以降低全球气温：我们需要利用自然来帮助。泥炭地是气候行动的一个极其重要的解决方案，因为当它们健康时，它们是陆地上最有效的碳储存。然而，它们在过去受到人类活动的破坏，许多现在是温室气体，特别是二氧化碳的来源。对泥炭地的开采已经将本应是碳储存的地方变成了全球碳排放的主要来源（占人类土地使用排放量的4%）。泥炭地覆盖了地球表面的一小部分（只有3%），但储存的碳比世界上所有森林的总和还要多。仅在英国，10%的土地被泥炭覆盖，但至少75%的土地被人类活动改变。将这些泥炭地恢复到健康的碳储存环境是英国对巴黎气候协定和净零目标承诺的核心部分。在全球范围内，超过40%的热带泥炭地和57%的温带泥炭地因人类活动而退化，一些国家已承诺恢复泥炭地作为减缓气候变化的措施。恢复受损和改造的泥炭地，以鼓励从空气中吸收二氧化碳并将其储存在植物和土壤中，这将影响整个生态系统，导致植物物种和水化学的变化，这反过来又会影响泥炭地生态系统吸收和产生温室气体的方式。恢复方法通常包括堵塞排水沟和重新湿润土壤，创造开放的水池。这些池是土壤，水和空气之间碳转移的潜在“热点”，可能导致泥炭地更高的温室气体损失，但尚未进行调查。重要的是要了解这些泥炭地池如何影响泥炭地的温室气体排放。如果没有生态系统中碳循环的全貌，就不可能量化恢复项目对减缓气候变化的好处，英国的目标是到2050年恢复50%的高地和25%的低地泥炭，重要的是要知道所使用的恢复方法是鼓励碳储存，降低温室气体排放。我将研究泥炭地池的温室气体排放，以发现恢复如何改变生态系统中土壤，水和空气之间的碳转移。我将研究池在近自然，损坏和恢复泥炭地，在寒冷和温带生物群落，调查泥炭地池的创建如何影响生活在泥炭和水中的微生物，以及如何温室气体排放量的变化时退化泥炭地网站恢复。该项目将导致泥炭地如何在微生物和生态系统水平上对恢复干预作出反应的新知识。它将导致对泥炭地温室气体预算的更好估计，并指导未来的恢复项目。泥炭地从业者和建模者将能够更好地预测恢复将如何受到气候变化的影响，并确定泥炭地帮助降低全球温室气体浓度的能力，以及作为基于自然的气候变化解决方案。

We are in a climate emergency. Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases is not enough to reduce global temperatures: we need to use nature to help. Peatlands are an extremely important solution for climate action because they are the most efficient carbon store on land when they are healthy. However, they have been damaged by human activities in the past, and many are now sources of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. Exploitation of peatlands has converted what should be a carbon store into a large source of global carbon emissions (4% of human land-use emissions). Peatlands cover a small proportion of the Earth's surface (only 3%) but store more carbon than all the world's forests combined. In the UK alone, 10% of the land is covered in peat, but at least 75% of that area has been modified by human activity. Restoring these peatlands to healthy, carbon-storing environments is a central part of the UK's commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement and Net Zero targets. Globally, over 40% of tropical, and 57% of temperate peatlands are degraded by human activities, and several countries have pledged to restore their peatlands as climate change mitigation measures. Restoring damaged and modified peatlands to encourage uptake of carbon dioxide from the air and store it as carbon in plants and soil will impact the whole ecosystem, leading to changes in the plant species and water chemistry, which will in turn impact how peatland ecosystems take up and produce greenhouse gases. Restoration methods often involve blocking drains and re-wetting the soil, creating open water pools. These pools are potential 'hotspots' for carbon transfer between soil, water and air, and could lead to higher greenhouse gas losses from the peatland, but have not been investigated. It is important to understand how these peatland pools impact the greenhouse gas emissions from a peatland. Without a complete picture of the carbon cycle in an ecosystem, it is impossible to quantify the benefits of restoration projects for climate change mitigation, and with the UK aiming to restore 50% of the upland and 25% of the lowland peat by 2050, it is important to know that the restoration methods used are encouraging carbon storage, and lowering the greenhouse gas emissions. I will study the greenhouse gas emissions from peatland pools to discover how restoration changes the carbon transfer between soil, water and air in an ecosystem. I will study pools in near-natural, damaged and restored peatlands, in cold and temperate biomes, to investigate how the creation of peatland pools impacts on the microbes living in the peat and water, and how the greenhouse gas emissions change when degraded peatland sites are restored. This project will result in new knowledge of how peatlands respond to restoration interventions at the microbial and ecosystem levels. It will lead to improved estimates for the greenhouse gas budget of peatlands, and guide future restoration projects. Peatland practitioners and modellers will be able to better predict how restoration will be impacted by changes in climate, and determine the capacity of peatlands to help reduce global greenhouse gas concentrations, and as a nature-based solution to climate change.