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Global change alters peatland carbon cycling through plant biomass allocation

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Abstract

Aims

Global change is shown to significantly affect the C storage function of peatlands; however, a majority of previous research is focused on a single environmental stressor such as the increased temperature. As a result, little is known about the interactive effect of multiple environmental stressors on peatland C storage, especially in sedge-dominated fen peatlands.

Methods

We performed a full factorial experiment of increased temperature and elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration on minerotrophic, sedge-dominated fen monoliths to experimentally examine the individual and interactive effects of simulated future climate conditions on peatland plant biomass, CO2 exchange, and pore water dissolved organic carbon (DOC) over one full growing season.

Results

Our study demonstrates that warming and elevated atmospheric CO2 significantly increased aboveground and belowground biomass, respectively, as well as the gross ecosystem production (GEP), while the DOC concentrations and respired CO2 from peatland soils only increased under warming

Conclusions

Our results suggest that global change will increase both plant production and microbial decomposition, but with altered plant biomass allocation between aboveground and belowground. Our study provides experimental evidence for shifts in ecosystem-level carbon dynamics under global change for a sedge-dominated peatland, and suggests that while carbon stores may weaken, the carbon sink will be maintained in these types of northern peatlands if hydrological conditions are largely maintained.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Faculty of Science, Western University for the use of the Biotron facilities, and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry for the access to the research site and assistance on the sample collection. This work was supported by funding from NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Discovery Grants program to BB (#217046-2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada

    Jing Tian, Brian A. Branfireun & Zoë Lindo

  2. Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada

    Brian A. Branfireun

Authors
  1. Jing Tian
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  2. Brian A. Branfireun
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  3. Zoë Lindo
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Contributions

BAB and ZL designed the experiment; BAB funded the project; JT executed the experiment, collected and analyzed the data; JT and ZL wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors contributed substantially to revisions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zoë Lindo.

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Tian, J., Branfireun, B.A. & Lindo, Z. Global change alters peatland carbon cycling through plant biomass allocation. Plant Soil 455, 53–64 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04664-4

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