Abstract
Coastal marshes are globally important, carbon dense ecosystems simultaneously maintained and threatened by sea-level rise. Warming temperatures may increase wetland plant productivity and organic matter accumulation, but temperature-modulated feedbacks between productivity and decomposition make it difficult to assess how wetlands and their thick, organic-rich soils will respond to climate warming. Here, we actively increased aboveground plant-surface and belowground soil temperatures in two marsh plant communities, and found that a moderate amount of warming (1.7°C above ambient temperatures) consistently maximized root growth, marsh elevation gain, and belowground carbon accumulation. Marsh elevation loss observed at higher temperatures was associated with increased carbon mineralization and increased microtopographic heterogeneity, a potential early warning signal of marsh drowning. Maximized elevation and belowground carbon accumulation for moderate warming scenarios uniquely suggest linkages between metabolic theory of individuals and landscape-scale ecosystem resilience and function, but our work indicates nonpermanent benefits as global temperatures continue to rise.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3236-3245 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Global change biology |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:S. Kent, T. O’Meara, R. Roy, K. Sendall, and P. Thornton provided feedback throughout this project. T. Messerschmidt, S. Kent, E. Herbert, and D. Walters conducted field measurements and sample collections. Funding for this project was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Environmental System Science program under Award Numbers DE‐SC0014413, DE‐SC0019110, and DE‐SC0021112. JPM and GLN acknowledge support from the Smithsonian Institution. GRG acknowledges support from the USGS Ecosystem Land Change Science Program. MLK acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (#1654374, 1832221, and 2012670). Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government. This is contribution no. 4084 of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Funding Information:
S. Kent, T. O?Meara, R. Roy, K. Sendall, and P. Thornton provided feedback throughout this project. T. Messerschmidt, S. Kent, E. Herbert, and D. Walters conducted field measurements and sample collections. Funding for this project was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Environmental System Science program under Award Numbers DE-SC0014413, DE-SC0019110, and DE-SC0021112. JPM and GLN acknowledge support from the Smithsonian Institution. GRG acknowledges support from the USGS Ecosystem Land Change Science Program. MLK acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (#1654374, 1832221, and 2012670). Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government. This is contribution no. 4084 of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Keywords
- carbon accumulation
- ecosystem resilience
- marsh elevation
- vertical accretion
- whole-ecosystem warming
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
