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Natural and Regenerated Saltmarshes Exhibit Similar Soil and Belowground Organic Carbon Stocks, Root Production and Soil Respiration
- Source :
- Ecosystems. 22:1803-1822
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Saltmarshes provide many valuable ecosystem services including storage of a large amount of ‘blue carbon’ within their soils. To date, up to 50% of the world’s saltmarshes have been lost or severely degraded primarily due to a variety of anthropogenic pressures. Previous efforts have aimed to restore saltmarshes and their ecosystem functions, but the success of these efforts is rarely evaluated. To fill this gap, we used a range of metrics, including organic carbon stocks, root production, soil respiration and microbial communities to compare natural and a 20-year restoration effort in saltmarsh habitats within the Sydney Olympic Park in New South Wales, Australia. We addressed four main questions: (1) Have above- and belowground plant biomass recovered to natural levels? (2) Have organic carbon stocks of soils recovered? (3) Are microbial communities similar between natural and regenerated saltmarshes? and (4) Are microbial communities at both habitats associated to ecosystem characteristics? For both soil organic carbon stocks and belowground biomass, we found no significant differences between natural and regenerated habitats (F(1,14) = 0.47, p = 0.5; F(1,42) = 0.08, p = 0.76). Aboveground biomass was higher in the natural habitat compared to the regenerated habitat (F(1,20) = 27.3, p
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Total organic carbon
Biomass (ecology)
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Ecology
Soil organic matter
Wetland
Carbon sequestration
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Soil respiration
Blue carbon
Environmental Chemistry
Environmental science
Ecosystem
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14350629 and 14329840
- Volume :
- 22
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Ecosystems
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........8774d1ddec7cafdbec032f5ea947c494