Abstract
During the last decades, various renaturation programmes have been initialized to recover nutrient sink and ecological functions of peatlands by rewetting. Rewetting, however, often results in the formation of hotspots for methane (CH4) emissions and in temporal dieback of local vegetation. The present study aimed at quantifying changes of CH4 and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in a peatland currently under continuous rewetting conditions. Emissions where studied at a permanently flooded site and a non-flooded peat site with fluctuating water tables by using common closed chamber method. The permanently flooded site revealed extremely high CH4 emissions (up to 1195 mg C m−2 d−1) which were positively correlated with temperature, nutrient content, dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen concentration of the peat soil water. In contrast, the non-flooded peat site, with lower and fluctuating water tables (WT), showed significantly lower CH4 emissions and an increasing trend of CH4 release associated with a generally increasing WT caused by the progressing rewetting process. Lower N2O emissions (<24 µg N m−2 d−1) were observed at the flooded site. By contrast, the non-flooded peat site with fluctuating WT showed significantly higher N2O emissions (up to 4178 µg N m−2 d−1), in particular at high temperatures during summer time. The present results indicate that permanently flooded conditions during rewetting processes might cause higher CH4 emissions compared to fluctuating WT which in contrast might enhance N2O emissions. In total, however, no decreasing trend for CH4 emissions throughout the five-year renaturation period could be found. At least for N2O we observed a decreasing trend during rewetting.
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt under the European Agricultural Fund for the Rural Development (ELER) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) for funding the research. A special thanks goes to the German National Park Harz Mountains as well as Mrs. R. Nauendorf and Mr. M. Engel† (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg) for supporting the fieldwork and to Mr. B. Apelt (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ) for conducting the gas analysis.
Funding
The research was funded by the Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt under the European Agricultural Fund for the Rural Development (ELER) and by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
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11273_2017_9555_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
ESM1.pdf: “Table S-1: Nutrient contents and C:N ratios in biomass of dominant plant species and plant communities of the flooded and non-flooded peat sites during the study period, different letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05, Man-Whitney-U-Test) between years per site (U)” Supplementary material 1 (PDF 66 kb)
11273_2017_9555_MOESM2_ESM.pdf
ESM2.pdf: “Table S-2: Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation (SD), median (Med), 25% (Q25)-, 75% (Q75)-quantiles, minimum (Min), maximum (Max)) of annual methane (CH4) emissions at the flooded and non-flooded peat sites during the study period (June 2010–October 2014), different letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05, n = 49, Man-Whitney-U-Test) between years per site (U1) and sites per years (U2)” Supplementary material 2 (PDF 64 kb)
11273_2017_9555_MOESM3_ESM.pdf
ESM3.pdf: “Table S-3: “Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation (SD), median (Med), 25% (Q25)-, 75% (Q75)-quantiles, minimum (Min), maximum (Max)) of annual nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions at the flooded and non-flooded peat sites during the study period (June 2010–October 2014), different letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05, n = 49, Man-Whitney-U-Test) between years per site (U1) and sites per years (U2)” Supplementary material 3 (PDF 65 kb)
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Osterloh, K., Tauchnitz, N., Spott, O. et al. Changes of methane and nitrous oxide emissions in a transition bog in central Germany (German National Park Harz Mountains) after rewetting. Wetlands Ecol Manage 26, 87–102 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-017-9555-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-017-9555-x