Abstract
Peatlands are responsible for the majority of methane (CH4) emission from wetlands globally. Hydrological changes induced by climatic and anthropogenic disturbance may substantially alter CH4 emission in peatlands. Here we measured CH4 emission monthly for 1.5 years in natural, drained and restored shrub bogs in North Carolina, USA. Methane emissions from all sites were consistently low (< 0.05 mg CH4 m− 2 h− 1). We occasionally detected markedly higher CH4 emissions (> 1 mg CH4 m− 2 h− 1) at sites where the water level remained close to the ground surface for 2–3 months, suggesting that surface litter mostly, not deep peat, contributes to CH4 emission. We verified this inference by incubating 2-cm sections of peat sliced from intact soil cores for 6 months. Only the saturated surface litter emitted CH4, which indicated a 5-cm threshold of ground water level for CH4 emission in our shrub bogs. During a wet year, water levels in the wet sites (natural and restored) remained at least 5 cm below soil surface for about 90 % of the days. We thus demonstrate the CH4 emission is negligible from these shrub bogs. This study also indicates that restoration through a non-inundated rewetting would not stimulate CH4 emission in drained/degraded low-latitude shrub bogs, such as pocosins.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Wes Willis, Jonathan Bills and Scott Winton for the field and lab measurements, and Dr. Randy Neighbarger for technical editing. Our thanks also go to Sara Ward and Dave Kitts, USFWS for helping with site selections and field assistance.
Funding
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Region 4, The Nature Conservancy of North Carolina, US DOE Office of Science, Terrestrial Ecosystem Sciences (DE-SC0012272), and the Duke University Wetland Center Endowment provided financial support.
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HW and CJR designed and set up the field experiment. HW and MH collected and analyzed soil/gas samples, HW design and conduct the lab incubation. NF monitored water level in field. HW was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Wang, H., Ho, M., Flanagan, N. et al. The Effects of Hydrological Management on Methane Emissions from Southeastern Shrub Bogs of the USA. Wetlands 41, 87 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01486-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01486-7