Impact of mooring activities on carbon stocks in seagrass meadows

Authors

Oscar Serrano, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
R. Ruhon
Paul S. Lavery, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Gary A. Kendrick
S. Hickey
Pere Masque, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Ariane Arias-Ortiz
Andy D.L. Steven
Carlos M. Duarte

Document Type

Journal Article

Publisher

Nature.com

School

School of Science / Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research

RAS ID

21312

Funders

ECU Faculty Research Grant Scheme

CSIRO Flagship Marine & Coastal Carbon Biogeochemical Cluster (Coastal Carbon Cluster)

Australia Award Scholarship

Gledden Visiting Fellowship

University of Western Australia

Generalitat de Catalunya (MERS 2014 SGR – 1356

PhD grant of Obra Social “la Caixa”

ARC Linkage grant (LP130100155)

Comments

Serrano, O., Ruhon, R., Lavery, P. S., Kendrick, G. A., Hickey, S., Masqué, P., . . . Duarte, C. M. (2016). Impact of mooring activities on carbon stocks in seagrass meadows. Scientific Reports, 6, 23193.

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep23193

Abstract

Boating activities are one of the causes that threaten seagrass meadows and the ecosystem services they provide. Mechanical destruction of seagrass habitats may also trigger the erosion of sedimentary organic carbon (C_org) stocks, which may contribute to increasing atmospheric CO₂. This study presents the first estimates of loss of C_org stocks in seagrass meadows due to mooring activities in Rottnest Island, Western Australia. Sediment cores were sampled from seagrass meadows and from bare but previously vegetated sediments underneath moorings. The C_org stores have been compromised by the mooring deployment from 1930s onwards, which involved both the erosion of existing sedimentary C_org stores and the lack of further accumulation of C_org. On average, undisturbed meadows had accumulated ~6.4 Kg C_org m⁻² in the upper 50 cm-thick deposits at a rate of 34 g C_org m⁻² yr⁻¹. The comparison of C_org stores between meadows and mooring scars allows us to estimate a loss of 4.8 kg C_org m⁻² in the 50 cm thick deposits accumulated over ca. 200 yr as a result of mooring deployments. These results provide key data for the implementation of C_org storage credit offset policies to avoid the conversion of seagrass ecosystems and contribute to their preservation.

DOI

10.1038/srep23193

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.