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Title: Soil properties and sediment accretion modulate methane fluxes from restored wetlands

Journal Article · · Global Change Biology
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14124· OSTI ID:1477371

Wetlands are the largest source of methane (CH4) globally, yet our understanding of how process-level controls scale to ecosystem fluxes remains limited. It is particularly uncertain how variable soil properties influence ecosystem CH4 emissions on annual time scales. Here. we measured ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO2) and CH4 fluxes by eddy covariance from two wetlands recently restored on peat and alluvium soils within the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta of California. Annual CH4 fluxes from the alluvium wetland were significantly lower than the peat site for multiple years following restoration, but these differences were not explained by variation in dominant climate drivers or productivity across wetlands. Soil iron (Fe) concentrations were significantly higher in alluvium soils, and alluvium CH4 fluxes were decoupled from plant processes compared with the peat site, as expected when Fe reduction inhibits CH4 production in the rhizosphere. Soil carbon content and CO2 uptake rates did not vary across wetlands and, thus, could also be ruled out as drivers of initial CH4 flux differences. Differences in wetland CH4 fluxes across soil types were transient; alluvium wetland fluxes were similar to peat wetland fluxes 3 years after restoration. Changing alluvium CH4 emissions with time could not be explained by an empirical model based on dominant CH4 flux biophysical drivers, suggesting that other factors, not measured by our eddy covariance towers, were responsible for these changes. Recently accreted alluvium soils were less acidic and contained more reduced Fe compared with the pre-restoration parent soils, suggesting that CH4 emissions increased as conditions became more favorable to methanogenesis within wetland sediments. This study suggests that alluvium soil properties, likely Fe content, are capable of inhibiting ecosystem-scale wetland CH4 flux, but these effects appear to be transient without continued input of alluvium to wetland sediments.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); California Dept. of Water Resources
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; 4600011240
OSTI ID:
1477371
Journal Information:
Global Change Biology, Vol. 24, Issue 9; ISSN 1354-1013
Publisher:
WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 32 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (4)

Advances in the Eddy Covariance Approach to CH 4 Monitoring Over Two and a Half Decades journal March 2019
Gap‐filling approaches for eddy covariance methane fluxes: A comparison of three machine learning algorithms and a traditional method with principal component analysis journal October 2019
Where old meets new: An ecosystem study of methanogenesis in a reflooded agricultural peatland journal December 2019
The ratio of methanogens to methanotrophs and water-level dynamics drive methane transfer velocity in a temperate kettle-hole peat bog journal January 2019