PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 21: Implications of disturbance on boreal peatland carbon cycling: From sites to to landscape-scale carbon budgets
Organizer(s): RK Wieder, KD Scott, and DH Vitt
Tuesday, August 9, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 511a, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Altered hydrology in boreal peatlands: Pervasive drought and the erosion of carbon stocks at high latitudes.
Turetsky, Merritt*,1, Harden, Jennifer2, McGuire, A. Dave2, Kasischke, Eric3, 1 Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI2 U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA3 University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK
ABSTRACT- Boreal regions contain large reservoirs of carbon, mostly in areas where poorly drained conditions lead to the accumulation of thick organic soil layers. Pervasive drying across large regions of interior Alaska suggests that carbon stocks in boreal peatlands will experience losses to the atmosphere through accelerated decomposition and severe burning. Our work investigates losses of carbon to wildfires using a combination of remote sensing and stand-level reconstructions of fuel combustion. While well-drained ecosystems lose a greater fraction of fuels during fire, peatlands and permafrost systems lose large amounts of carbon through the burning of soil layers. Lower water tables also are likely to increase fluxes of carbon to the atmosphere through organic matter decomposition. However, the recalcitrant nature of moss litter might stabilize surface organic matter. Our new research uses experimental manipulation of water table and soil temperatures to examine these complex controls on carbon turnover in an Alaskan fen.
Key words: carbon, peatland, climate change, fire