TY - JOUR
T1 - Sequestration of macroalgal carbon: the elephant in the Blue Carbon room
AU - Krause-Jensen, Dorte
AU - Lavery, Paul
AU - Serrano, Oscar
AU - Marbà, Núria
AU - Masque, Pere
AU - Duarte, Carlos M.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: ECU is thanked for funding and hosting a workshop (February 2018) where the paper was drafted. D.K.-J. thanks the Independent Research Fund Denmark (8021-00222B, 'CARMA') for support. O.S. was supported by an ARC DECRA DE170101524. P.M. was supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (grant no. 2017SGR1588). This work contributes to the ICTA 'Unit of Excellence' (MinECo, MFM2015-0552).
PY - 2018/6/20
Y1 - 2018/6/20
N2 - Macroalgae form the most extensive and productive benthic marine vegetated habitats globally but their inclusion in Blue Carbon (BC) strategies remains controversial. We review the arguments offered to reject or include macroalgae in the BC framework, and identify the challenges that have precluded macroalgae from being incorporated so far. Evidence that macroalgae support significant carbon burial is compelling. The carbon they supply to sediment stocks in angiosperm BC habitats is already included in current assessments, so that macroalgae are de facto recognized as important donors of BC. The key challenges are (i) documenting macroalgal carbon sequestered beyond BC habitat, (ii) tracing it back to source habitats, and (iii) showing that management actions at the habitat lead to increased sequestration at the sink site. These challenges apply equally to carbon exported from BC coastal habitats. Because of the large carbon sink they support, incorporation of macroalgae into BC accounting and actions is an imperative. This requires a paradigm shift in accounting procedures as well as developing methods to enable the capacity to trace carbon from donor to sink habitats in the ocean.
AB - Macroalgae form the most extensive and productive benthic marine vegetated habitats globally but their inclusion in Blue Carbon (BC) strategies remains controversial. We review the arguments offered to reject or include macroalgae in the BC framework, and identify the challenges that have precluded macroalgae from being incorporated so far. Evidence that macroalgae support significant carbon burial is compelling. The carbon they supply to sediment stocks in angiosperm BC habitats is already included in current assessments, so that macroalgae are de facto recognized as important donors of BC. The key challenges are (i) documenting macroalgal carbon sequestered beyond BC habitat, (ii) tracing it back to source habitats, and (iii) showing that management actions at the habitat lead to increased sequestration at the sink site. These challenges apply equally to carbon exported from BC coastal habitats. Because of the large carbon sink they support, incorporation of macroalgae into BC accounting and actions is an imperative. This requires a paradigm shift in accounting procedures as well as developing methods to enable the capacity to trace carbon from donor to sink habitats in the ocean.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/631530
UR - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0236
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049631412&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0236
DO - 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0236
M3 - Article
C2 - 29925564
VL - 14
SP - 20180236
JO - Biology Letters
JF - Biology Letters
SN - 1744-9561
IS - 6
ER -