Abstract
Understanding the response of carbon (C) accumulation to past climate changes can provide useful insights for predicting the fate of C in a future, warmer world. Here, we present data from three well-dated peat cores that reveal the history of wetland C accumulation in the Sanjiang Plain (China), and its links to Holocene climate and environmental changes. Regional C accumulation was largely governed by monsoon-driven depositional conditions. Before ~4400 cal year BP, the strong summer monsoon favored development of lakes with relatively slow and stable C accumulation rates, ~20 g C m−2 year−1. Thereafter, with the sharp decline in summer monsoon precipitation, peatlands began to form at the expense of the paleolakes, leading to a roughly sixfold increase in the C accumulation rate. This was a consequence of the higher primary production in peatlands compared to lakes. During the interval from 4400 to 500 cal year BP, the gradually increasing C accumulation rate responded to the decreasing strength of the summer monsoon. The decline in C accumulation rate over the past 500 years is attributed to both the strengthened summer monsoon and intensified human influences.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Thomas Bianchette and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on a previous version of the manuscript. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41271209 and 41271205) and the State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment (2014SKL007).
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Zhang, Z., Wang, G., Liu, X. et al. Holocene controls on wetland carbon accumulation in the Sanjiang Plain, China. J Paleolimnol 56, 267–274 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-016-9896-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-016-9896-0