Current Forest Carbon Fixation Fuels Stream CO Emissions

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2019 Apr 25

PMID 31015439

Citations 5

Authors

A Campeau

K Bishop

N Amvrosiadi

M F Billett

M H Garnett

H Laudon

M G Oquist

M B Wallin

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Stream CO emissions contribute significantly to atmospheric climate forcing. While there are strong indications that groundwater inputs sustain these emissions, the specific biogeochemical pathways and timescales involved in this lateral CO export are still obscure. Here, via an extensive radiocarbon (C) characterisation of CO and DOC in stream water and its groundwater sources in an old-growth boreal forest, we demonstrate that the C-CO is consistently in tune with the current atmospheric C-CO level and shows little association with the C-DOC in the same waters. Our findings thus indicate that stream CO emissions act as a shortcut that returns CO recently fixed by the forest vegetation to the atmosphere. Our results expose a positive feedback mechanism within the C budget of forested catchments, where stream CO emissions will be highly sensitive to changes in forest C allocation patterns associated with climate and land-use changes.

Citing Articles

Electrocatalytic Reactions for Converting CO to Value-Added Products: Recent Progress and Emerging Trends.

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Integrating terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to constrain estimates of land-atmosphere carbon exchange.

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The importance of hydrology in routing terrestrial carbon to the atmosphere via global streams and rivers.

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The undetected loss of aged carbon from boreal mineral soils.

Hensgens G, Laudon H, Johnson M, Berggren M Sci Rep. 2021; 11(1):6202.

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East Siberian Arctic inland waters emit mostly contemporary carbon.

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