The impact of global warming on the soil organic matter decay of world mangroves.

The worlds vegetation acts as a large carbon sink, absorbing ~30% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Ecosystems at the interface of terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems including mangroves have been little studied.

Yet, mangroves contribute disproportionally to this sink capacity relative to their aerial extent, as they have up to ten times higher burial rates than terrestrial forests.

Under global warming, it is nevertheless unclear whether mangroves will continue to store carbon and absorb CO2 emissions at the same rate or become a net source of CO2. This is because higher temperature may accelerate soil biogeochemical processes.

Here, I will track the carbon decay in mangrove soils under warmings using a novel combination of mesocosm experiments coupled with isotopic analysis.

The results will provide the first quantification of soil organic matter (SOM) decay under global warming scenarios in mangroves (research objective 1-RO1), reveal its underlying mechanisms (RO2) and potential feedback loop with vegetation (RO3).

This will be a step-change in understanding how mangrove carbon stocks and sink capacity will respond to global warming.