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Tropical wetlands: seasonal hydrologic pulsing, carbon sequestration, and methane emissions

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Abstract

This paper summarizes the importance of climate on tropical wetlands. Regional hydrology and carbon dynamics in many of these wetlands could shift with dramatic changes in these major carbon storages if the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) were to change in its annual patterns. The importance of seasonal pulsing hydrology on many tropical wetlands, which can be caused by watershed activities, orographic features, or monsoonal pulses from the ITCZ, is illustrated by both annual and 30-year patterns of hydrology in the Okavango Delta in southern Africa. Current studies on carbon biogeochemistry in Central America are attempting to determine the rates of carbon sequestration in tropical wetlands compared to temperate wetlands and the effects of hydrologic conditions on methane generation in these wetlands. Using the same field and lab techniques, we estimated that a humid tropical wetland in Costa Rica accumulated 255 g C m−2 year−1 in the past 42 years, 80% more than a similar temperate wetland in Ohio that accumulated 142 g C m−2 year−1 over the same period. Methane emissions averaged 1,080 mg-C m−2 day−1 in a seasonally pulsed wetland in western Costa Rica, a rate higher than methane emission rates measured over the same period from humid tropic wetlands in eastern Costa Rica (120–278 mg-C m−2 day−1). Tropical wetlands are often tuned to seasonal pulses of water caused by the seasonal movement of the ITCZ and are the most likely to be have higher fire frequency and changed methane emissions and carbon oxidation if the ITCZ were to change even slightly.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Grant DE-FG02-04ER63834 (EARTH University/OSU Program on Collaborative Environmental Research in the Humid Tropics; D Hansen, PI); the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant EM-83329801-0 (Olentangy River Wetland Research Park: Teaching, research and outreach; W Mitsch, PI); a 2007 Fulbright Senior Specialist grant (Project 2426 to WJ Mitsch) for collaboration with the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre, University of Botswana; and by support from the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, The Ohio State University. We were assisted in so many ways by Bert Kohlmann, Carlos Hernandez, and Jane Yeomans of EARTH University, Costa Rica; by John Holm, University of Botswana; and by Dave Klarer, Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve, Huron, Ohio, USA. This paper is based on an invited presentation at the Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS) 2007 conference in Sacramento, CA. Anne Mischo kindly prepared some of the illustrations. Olentangy River Wetland Research Park Publication 2010–001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, 352 W Dodridge Street, Columbus, OH, 43202, USA

    William J. Mitsch, Amanda Nahlik, Blanca Bernal & Li Zhang

  2. Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre, University of Botswana, Maun, Botswana

    Piotr Wolski & Lars Ramberg

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  1. William J. Mitsch
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  2. Amanda Nahlik
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  6. Lars Ramberg
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Correspondence to William J. Mitsch.

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Mitsch, W.J., Nahlik, A., Wolski, P. et al. Tropical wetlands: seasonal hydrologic pulsing, carbon sequestration, and methane emissions. Wetlands Ecol Manage 18, 573–586 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-009-9164-4

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