Carbon-rich mangroves ripe for the conservation

Failed to preserve significant carbon emissions could cause mangrove forests.To date, locked up the amount of carbon in mangrove forests was largely unknown.Dan Donato

Mangrove forests in tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific Ocean store more carbon than previously known, according to a study, published today in nature Geoscience1. The results show that much of the carbon in these forests in the surrounding ground is found which is rich in organic material. Reduction in mangrove forests, which are less than 1% of the tropical forest, could therefore up to 10% of global CO2 emissions from deforestation.

Although forest rated carbon reserves in other types of tropical wetland have been, has the amount of carbon in mangroves is largely ignored, although they are present in more than 100 countries. For example, it is estimated that clearing of tropical peatlands that contain carbon-rich soils, produces about a quarter of all deforestation emissions. The extent of mangrove forests has fallen by as much as 50% in the last half-century due to the development, deforestation, and aquaculture, so estimate that reserves their carbon for future strategies for reducing the climate change will be important.

The abundance of carbon in mangroves to appreciate, sampled principal investigator j. Boone Kauffman, environmentalist at the northern research station of the U.S. forest service in Durham, New Hampshire, and his team 25 mangrove sites over a wide area that Micronesia enthaltenIndonesien and Bangladesh. This area covers 30 degrees wide and dropping 73 degrees of longitude and about 40% of global area these trees.

Kauffman and his team reviewed above-ground and below ground of carbon pools in estuaries and oceanic settings, such as island coastal mangroves sites occupy. They found that these forests forests hold much more carbon than temperate, boreal and tropical Highlands - especially in an organic rich 'Muck layer' Earth more than 30 cm below the surface.

The team found that this underground layer thicker in mangrove forests in estuaries than in those close to the ocean, accounting for more than 70% of the total carbon stores in estuarine mangrove and over 50% in the oceanic zone.

By combining their results with global data, the researchers predict that worldwide carbon reserves in mangrove forests can up to 25% of the respondents in tropical peatlands, and at the current rate of the annual clearance, emissions of mangrove destruction 40% of which one reach the processing of the peatlands.

"This paper is an important step forward in the quantification and understanding of the major pool of carbon in mangrove ecosystems," says Shimon anise field, expert in coastal ecology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

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However, the numbers represent only rough estimates due to lack of information on geographic variation in the soil depth, the relative area of mangrove forests in estuaries in comparison to those in the vicinity of oceans and the impact of land use change on carbon release from soils. This even excessive, perhaps because "the authors seem some of the largest and most powerful is, looked", says Thomas Smith, environmentalist at the US Geological Survey in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The study could have a significant impact on conservation efforts around the world, an expert in coastal ecosystems at McGill University in Montreal, Canada still says Gail Chmura,. "I hope it will help arguments, REDD + extend to mangroves,", she says, referring to an international plan to pay developing countries to the conservation of forests in a bid to reduce global CO2 emissions.

Robert Jackson, environmentalist at the Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, agreed with Chmura, add: "mangrove forests are important for diversity, for coastal stability and carbon, based on this paper." "There is no more justification for the conservation of mangrove forests."

Donato, D. C. et al., nature Geoscience advance online publication DOI: 10.1038 / ngeo1123 (2011).If you something offensive or inappropriate or that otherwise are not met our conditions or Community guidelines, select you the appropriate "this comment report" Link.Kommentare on this thread are marked according to the time of booking.

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