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. 2017 Feb 10:7:42406.
doi: 10.1038/srep42406.

Mangroves as a major source of soil carbon storage in adjacent seagrass meadows

Guangcheng Chen  1 , Muhammad Husni Azkab  2 , Gail L Chmura  3 , Shunyang Chen  1 , Pramudji Sastrosuwondo  2 , Zhiyuan Ma  1 , I Wayan Eka Dharmawan  2 , Xijie Yin  1 , Bin Chen  1
Affiliations

Mangroves as a major source of soil carbon storage in adjacent seagrass meadows

Guangcheng Chen et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Mangrove forests have the potential to export carbon to adjacent ecosystems but whether mangrove-derived organic carbon (OC) would enhance the soil OC storage in seagrass meadows adjacent to mangroves is unclear. In this study we examine the potential for the contribution of mangrove OC to seagrass soils on the coast of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. We found that seagrass meadows adjacent to mangroves had significantly higher soil OC concentrations, soil OC with lower δ 13C, and lower bulk density than those at the non-mangrove adjacent meadows. Soil OC storage to 30 cm depth ranged from 3.21 to 6.82 kg C m-2, and was also significantly higher at the mangrove adjacent meadows than those non-adjacent meadows. δ13C analyses revealed that mangrove OC contributed 34 to 83% to soil OC at the mangrove adjacent meadows. The δ13C value of seagrass plants was also different between the seagrasses adjacent to mangroves and those which were not, with lower values measured at the seagrasses adjacent to mangroves. Moreover, we found significant spatial variation in both soil OC concentration and storage, with values decreasing toward sea, and the contribution of mangrove-derived carbon also reduced with distance from the forest.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Locations of the four sampling sites in North Sulawesi, Indonesia.
The map was created with ArcGIS version 10.0 (https://www.arcgis.com) using the World Ocean Base freely available at http://services.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/services. The map of Kema area (a) was created with ArcGIS version 10.0 using the digitizing Google Earth (Version 7.1, https://www.google.com/earth/) image (Image ©2016 DigitalGlobe). WR: Wori; TM: Tanjung Merah; KM: Kema; KML: Kema lagoon; KMB: Kema beach.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Soil organic carbon concentration (a), bulk density (b) and carbon storage (c) in the four seagrass meadows in North Sulawesi. KML: Kema lagoon; WR: Wori; KMB: Kema beach; TM: Tanjung Merah (mean and standard deviation of three replicates are shown). ST1 was the mangrove-fringed station (for WR and KML) or the landward station (for TM and KMB); ST3 was the off-shore station and ST2 was midpoint between ST1 and ST3.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Organic carbon concentrations in seagrass plants in North Sulawesi (mean and standard deviation of three replicates are shown).
Same abbreviations as Fig. 2.
Figure 4
Figure 4
δ13C of seagrass (a) and soil organic carbon (b) in the four seagrass meadows in North Sulawesi (mean and standard deviation of three replicates are shown). Same abbreviations as Fig. 2. At each sampling station, different letters indicate significant difference among the four sites according to ANOVA test.
Figure 5
Figure 5. The relationships between the concentration and δ13C of soil OC in seagrass meadows (n = 36).
White symbols: data from non-mangrove adjacent seagrass meadows; grey symbols: data from mangrove adjacent seagrass meadows.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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