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Ecosystem carbon storage and sink/source of temperate forested wetlands in Xiaoxing’anling, northeast China

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Abstract

Wetlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle, but there are still considerable uncertainties in the estimation of wetland carbon storage and a dispute on whether wetlands are carbon sources or carbon sinks. Xiaoxing’anling are one of several concentrated distribution areas of forested wetland in China, but the carbon storage and carbon sink/source of forested wetlands in this area is unclear. We measured the ecosystem carbon storage (vegetation and soil), annual net carbon sequestration of vegetation and annual carbon emissions of soil heterotrophic respiration of five typical forested wetland types (alder swamp, white birch swamp, larch swamp, larch fen, and larch bog) distributed along a moisture gradient in this area in order to reveal the spatial variations of their carbon storage and quantitatively evaluate their position as carbon sink or source according to the net carbon balance of the ecosystems. The results show that the larch fen had high carbon storage (448.8 t ha−1) (6.8% higher than the larch bog and 10.5–30.1% significantly higher than other three wetlands (P < 0.05), the white birch swamp and larch bog were medium carbon storage ecosystems (406.3 and 420.1 t ha−1) (12.4–21.8% significantly higher than the other two types (P < 0.0 5), while the alder swamp and larch swamp were low in carbon storage (345.0 and 361.5 t ha−1, respectively). The carbon pools of the five wetlands were dominated by their soil carbon pools (88.5–94.5%), and the vegetation carbon pool was secondary (5.5–11.5%). At the same time, their ecosystem net carbon balances were positive (0.1–0.6 t ha−1 a−1) because the annual net carbon sequestration of vegetation (4.0–4.5 t ha−1 a−1) were higher than the annual carbon emissions of soil heterotrophic respiration (CO2 and CH4) (3.8–4.4 t ha−1 a−1) in four wetlands, (the alder swamp being the exception), so all four were carbon sinks while only the alder swamp was a source of carbon emissions (− 2.1 t ha−1 a−1) due to a degraded tree layer. Our results demonstrate that these forested wetlands were generally carbon sinks in the Xiaoxing’anling, and there was obvious spatial variation in carbon storage of ecosystems along the moisture gradient.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staffs in the Center for Ecological Research of Northeast Forestry University and Yongqing Forest Farm for their support in the field and laboratory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ecological Research, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, People’s Republic of China

    Biao Wang, Changcheng Mu, Na Li, Yan Zhang & Li Ma

  2. Faculty of Forestry, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, 266000, People’s Republic of China

    Huicui Lu

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  1. Biao Wang
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Correspondence to Changcheng Mu.

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Project funding: This project was supported financially by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFA0600803) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31370461).

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Wang, B., Mu, C., Lu, H. et al. Ecosystem carbon storage and sink/source of temperate forested wetlands in Xiaoxing’anling, northeast China. J. For. Res. 33, 839–849 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-021-01366-0

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