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| Titel |
Understanding multiple element budgets of peatlands - a role for simple stoichiometry? |
| VerfasserIn |
Fred Worrall, Gareth Clay, Tim Burt |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250048017
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| Zusammenfassung |
| A few studies have considered the carbon budget of peatlands; fewer studies have considered the N budget of peat soils and none have considered both together. This study considered the total N budget of an upland peat-covered catchment over the period 1993 to 2009 at the same time as the C budget was being measured. The study has shown:
1. Tracing the C/N ratio of biosphere reservoirs shows that primary productivity and litter decomposition represent outputs of N from the soil while DOC production and humification represent inputs of N.
2. Over the 13 year study period, the total carbon balance varied between a net sink of 20 to - 91 tonnes C / km2 / yr
3. Overall, the total N budget of the peat ecosystem varies from -1.0 to +2.5 tonnes N/km2/yr, i.e.in some years the ecosystem is a net source of N.
The time series of the total N budget suggests that the N budget is responding to occurrence of severe droughts with a long-term decline in N storage. This could be interpreted as the ecosystem responding to long-term high N deposition rates, even if those rates have now diminished. The carbon budget shows no such trends, although the knowledge of carbon fluxes constrains N fluxes and transfers they do appear to have distinct drivers. The next step in this research is to consider the oxygen budget of this environment and this presentation will show preliminary results from this work. |
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