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. 2019 Jan 31;15(1):20180407.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0407.

Exploring the oxygen sensitivity of wetland soil carbon mineralization

Samantha K Chapman  1 , Matthew A Hayes  1 , Brendan Kelly  2 , J Adam Langley  1
Affiliations

Exploring the oxygen sensitivity of wetland soil carbon mineralization

Samantha K Chapman et al. Biol Lett. .

Abstract

Soil oxygen availability may influence blue carbon, which is carbon stored in coastal wetlands, by controlling the decomposition of soil organic matter. We are beginning to quantify soil oxygen availability in wetlands, but we lack a precise understanding of how oxygen controls soil carbon dynamics. In this paper, we synthesize existing data from oxic and anoxic wetland soil incubations to determine how oxygen controls carbon mineralization. We define the oxygen sensitivity of carbon mineralization as the ratio of carbon mineralization rate in oxic soil to this rate in anoxic soil, such that higher values of this ratio indicate greater sensitivity of carbon mineralization to oxygen. The estimates of oxygen sensitivity we derived from existing literature show a wide range of ratios, from 0.8 to 33, across wetlands. We then report oxygen sensitivities from an experimental mesocosm we developed to manipulate soil oxygen status in realistic soils. The variation in oxygen sensitivity we uncover from this systematic review and experiment indicates that Earth system models may misrepresent the oxygen sensitivity of carbon mineralization, and how it varies with context, in wetland soils. We suggest that altered soil oxygen availability could be an important driver of future blue carbon storage in coastal wetlands.

Keywords: blue carbon; carbon mineralization; coastal wetland; oxic : anoxic ratios; oxygen.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no competing interests

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Mechanisms by which soil oxygen can impact soil carbon dynamics (orange text and boxes). Red and green text and arrows indicate the global change drivers that can indirectly alter soil oxygen availability.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Schematic (a) and image (b) of flow-through mesocosm system. An example of continuous respiration measurements (c) from a pair of soils, one oxidized at time 0 and one remaining anoxic. The six-week mean respiration rates (d) from five soil pairs, and the corresponding ratio of oxic-to-anoxic respiration (e) for each pair (varied by colour).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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