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Christensen, Matthew Shane

University of British Columbia

Despite the importance of coastal ecosystems for the global carbon (carbon) budgets including obligations to the United Nations (UN) and growing policy frameworks for natural climate solutions, knowledge of coastal carbon storage capacity and the factors driving variability in storage capacity is still limited. Here we provide an estimate of the magnitude and variability of Canadian eelgrass (Zostera marina) sediment carbon stocks. We sampled 22 eelgrass meadows across three coastal regions to quantify and explain variation in organic carbon stocks in eelgrass associated sediments. Eelgrass carbon stocks integrated over 25-cm depth ranged from 55 to 196 Mg carbon ha⁻¹ (mean 18.2 Mg carbon ha⁻¹ ). Organic carbon stocks predicted from the model also ranged from 39.65 to 85.37 Mg carbon ha⁻¹ with an average of 59.02 ± 0.35 Mg carbon ⁻¹. These estimates are consistent with estimates of temperate Z. marina blue carbon values (3.18 ± 0.10 to 265.23 ± 6.67 Mg carbon ha⁻¹ ) (Röhr et al 2018). Overall, from 89 cores collected in this study, I found that variation in organic carbon stocks was explained by substrate cover type, coast, sediment silt content, exposure, and sediment depth. The high spatial carbon storage variability urges caution in extrapolating carbon storage capacity from broader seagrass carbon studies as well as between geographical areas.

Text

2023-03-08

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83898

Zoology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/