Blue C accumulation: comparing stocks in Southwestern Atlantic and Wadden Sea salt marshes

MONTEMAYOR, D.; ALBERTI, J.; MARTINETTO, P.; AGUIAR, M.R.; NOLTE, S.; WANNER, A.; IRIBARNE, O.; JENSEN, K.

Saint-Malo

Workshop; Coastal Ecology Workshop; 2014

The large stocks of carbon stored in salt marshes (Chmura et al. 2003) make their preservation extremely valuable to reduce human impacts on atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Nellemann et al. 2009). In recent studies it was established the concern of limited and geographically biased data (McLeod et al. 2011): many studies from North America, some from Europe but none from South America, Southern Africa or Southern Asia (McLeod et al. 2011). These geographic limitations make it difficult to have a global comprehension of blue C ecosystems (Grimsditch et al. 2012). In this context, we conducted field samplings to estimate C stocks in regions where this information was lacking: the low marsh of Southwestern Atlantic marshes and the pioneer zone of the Wadden Sea. These two types of marshes are flooded twice a day and are dominated by Spartina alterniflora in the first region and Spartina anglica and Salicornia europea in the second region.  We estimated above and belowground biomass and soil C density. When statistically comparing above and belowground biomass of all the marshes from the two regions we found that both regions share low, medium and large values. When statistically comparing soil C density of all the marshes from the two regions we found that except for two sites with low values (one of each region) all the other marshes have similar amounts. We finally discuss our estimations in comparison to estimations for the same species in other world regions and what are the next studies needed to understand how the marshes of these two regions function.