Climate warming and elevated CO<sub>2</sub> alter peatland soil carbon sources and stability.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37985767.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-43410-z and PMC identifier 10662476.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Peatlands are an important carbon (C) reservoir storing one-third of global soil organic carbon (SOC), but little is known about the fate of these C stocks under climate change. Here, we examine the impact of warming and elevated atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentration (eCO<sub>2</sub>) on the molecular composition of SOC to infer SOC sources (microbe-, plant- and fire-derived) and stability in a boreal peatland. We show that while warming alone decreased plant- and microbe-derived SOC due to enhanced decomposition, warming combined with eCO<sub>2</sub> increased plant-derived SOC compounds. We further observed increasing root-derived inputs (suberin) and declining leaf/needle-derived inputs (cutin) into SOC under warming and eCO<sub>2</sub>. The decline in SOC compounds with warming and gains from new root-derived C under eCO<sub>2</sub>, suggest that warming and eCO<sub>2</sub> may shift peatland C budget towards pools with faster turnover. Together, our results indicate that climate change may increase inputs and enhance decomposition of SOC potentially destabilising C storage in peatlands.