Methane emissions from tree stems: a new frontier in the global carbon cycle
Abstract
Tree stems from wetland, floodplain and upland forests can emit CH4. This emerging field of research has revealed a high spatial and temporal variability on CH4 stem emissions between trees and species, and within and across ecosystems, which is not completely understood. Additionally, there is no consensus on the biophysical mechanisms that could support stem CH4 emissions, including the origin of these emissions. This hinders our understanding of spatial and temporal patterns and hamper the identification of biophysical drivers. Here, we summarize up to 30 opportunities and challenges on stem CH4 emissions research in order to improve estimates of magnitudes, patterns, drivers and trace the potential origin of CH4 emissions. We propose two main challenges: the need for long-term high frequency measurements of stem CH4 emissions, and the need for a mechanistic model including passive and active transport of CH4 from the soil-tree-atmosphere continuum. The first challenge would allow to constrain magnitudes and patterns of CH4 emissions at different temporal scales, and the second would require discovery and integration of pathways and mechanisms of CH4 production and emissions to be integrated into process-base models. Addressing these challenges might improve upscaling of CH4 emissions from trees to the ecosystem scale andmore »
- Authors:
-
[12];
- Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD (United States)
- Aalborg Univ. (Denmark)
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States); Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (United States)
- Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
- Technical Univ. of Denmark (Denmark)
- Lancaster Univ., Lancaster (United Kingdom)
- Univ. of Helsinki (Finland)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
- Tokyo Univ. of Agriculture (Japan)
- Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1484115
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1487299; OSTI ID: 1506688
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-137837
Journal ID: ISSN 0028-646X
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725; AC05-76RL01830
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- New Phytologist
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: in press; Journal Issue: none; Journal ID: ISSN 0028-646X
- Publisher:
- Wiley
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; methane emissions; CH 4 transport; tree stems; upland forests; wetland forests; methanogenesis; spatial variability; temporal variability; methane emissions, CH4, tree stems, upland forests, wetland forests, methanogenesis, spatial variability, temporal variability
Citation Formats
Barba, Josep, Bradford, Mark A., Brewer, Paul E., Bruhn, Dan, Covey, Kristofer, van Haren, Joost, Megonigal, J. Patrick, Mikkelsen, Teis Nørgaard, Pangala, Sunitha R., Pihlatie, Mari, Poulter, Ben, Rivas-Ubach, Albert, Schadt, Christopher Warren, Terazawa, Kazuhiko, Warner, Daniel L., Zhang, Zhen, and Vargas, Rodrigo. Methane emissions from tree stems: a new frontier in the global carbon cycle. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1111/nph.15582.
Barba, Josep, Bradford, Mark A., Brewer, Paul E., Bruhn, Dan, Covey, Kristofer, van Haren, Joost, Megonigal, J. Patrick, Mikkelsen, Teis Nørgaard, Pangala, Sunitha R., Pihlatie, Mari, Poulter, Ben, Rivas-Ubach, Albert, Schadt, Christopher Warren, Terazawa, Kazuhiko, Warner, Daniel L., Zhang, Zhen, & Vargas, Rodrigo. Methane emissions from tree stems: a new frontier in the global carbon cycle. United States. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15582
Barba, Josep, Bradford, Mark A., Brewer, Paul E., Bruhn, Dan, Covey, Kristofer, van Haren, Joost, Megonigal, J. Patrick, Mikkelsen, Teis Nørgaard, Pangala, Sunitha R., Pihlatie, Mari, Poulter, Ben, Rivas-Ubach, Albert, Schadt, Christopher Warren, Terazawa, Kazuhiko, Warner, Daniel L., Zhang, Zhen, and Vargas, Rodrigo. Mon .
"Methane emissions from tree stems: a new frontier in the global carbon cycle". United States. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15582. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1484115.
@article{osti_1484115,
title = {Methane emissions from tree stems: a new frontier in the global carbon cycle},
author = {Barba, Josep and Bradford, Mark A. and Brewer, Paul E. and Bruhn, Dan and Covey, Kristofer and van Haren, Joost and Megonigal, J. Patrick and Mikkelsen, Teis Nørgaard and Pangala, Sunitha R. and Pihlatie, Mari and Poulter, Ben and Rivas-Ubach, Albert and Schadt, Christopher Warren and Terazawa, Kazuhiko and Warner, Daniel L. and Zhang, Zhen and Vargas, Rodrigo},
abstractNote = {Tree stems from wetland, floodplain and upland forests can emit CH4. This emerging field of research has revealed a high spatial and temporal variability on CH4 stem emissions between trees and species, and within and across ecosystems, which is not completely understood. Additionally, there is no consensus on the biophysical mechanisms that could support stem CH4 emissions, including the origin of these emissions. This hinders our understanding of spatial and temporal patterns and hamper the identification of biophysical drivers. Here, we summarize up to 30 opportunities and challenges on stem CH4 emissions research in order to improve estimates of magnitudes, patterns, drivers and trace the potential origin of CH4 emissions. We propose two main challenges: the need for long-term high frequency measurements of stem CH4 emissions, and the need for a mechanistic model including passive and active transport of CH4 from the soil-tree-atmosphere continuum. The first challenge would allow to constrain magnitudes and patterns of CH4 emissions at different temporal scales, and the second would require discovery and integration of pathways and mechanisms of CH4 production and emissions to be integrated into process-base models. Addressing these challenges might improve upscaling of CH4 emissions from trees to the ecosystem scale and the quantification of the role of stem CH4 emissions for the local-to-global CH4 budget.},
doi = {10.1111/nph.15582},
journal = {New Phytologist},
number = none,
volume = in press,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {11}
}
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