Scientists have long feared that as Earth warms, tropical peatlands -- which store up to 10 percent of the planet’s soil carbon -- could dry out, decay and release vast pools of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, rapidly accelerating climate change.
A new international study headed by researchers at Florida State University and Duke University, reveals the outlook may not be as bleak. It finds that these swamps and marshes have a natural biochemical defense mechanism that helps them resist or retard decay -- even in warming temperatures and more severe droughts.
“This is good news, because it indicates that scenarios where all this stored carbon in these peatlands goes up into the air as carbon dioxide and methane may not happen quite as rapidly as we originally projected,” said Curtis J. Richardson, John O. Blackburn Distinguished Professor of Resource Ecology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
“It doesn’t solve climate change, but it does suggest these peatlands have some built-in resilience that we didn’t recognize before,” said Richardson, who also serves as director of the Duke University Wetland Center. “
Continue reading at Duke University
Image via Duke University
