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Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China

Peatlands contain large amount of carbon stock that is vulnerable to release into the atmosphere. Mostly because of human impact, the peatlands at Zoige Wetlands face severe degradation, and the groundwater table is now lower than before, which has increased the population of the plateau zokor, a bu...

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Autores principales: Zhou, Yan, Li, Nana, Grace, John, Yang, Meng, Lu, Cai, Geng, Xuemeng, Lei, Guangchun, Zhu, Wei, Deng, Yongfeng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4277300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25542023
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115542
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author Zhou, Yan
Li, Nana
Grace, John
Yang, Meng
Lu, Cai
Geng, Xuemeng
Lei, Guangchun
Zhu, Wei
Deng, Yongfeng
author_facet Zhou, Yan
Li, Nana
Grace, John
Yang, Meng
Lu, Cai
Geng, Xuemeng
Lei, Guangchun
Zhu, Wei
Deng, Yongfeng
author_sort Zhou, Yan
collection PubMed
description Peatlands contain large amount of carbon stock that is vulnerable to release into the atmosphere. Mostly because of human impact, the peatlands at Zoige Wetlands face severe degradation, and the groundwater table is now lower than before, which has increased the population of the plateau zokor, a burrowing rodent. However, the impact of these changes on ecosystem carbon flows has not been studied. To investigate how the plateau zokor and the groundwater level alter the ecosystem respiration of the Zoige peatlands, we sampled the CO(2) flux of hummocks shaped by the zokors and compared it with the CO(2) flux of undisturbed sites with different groundwater table levels. The soil organic carbon (SOC), soil water content (SWC) and soil temperature at 5 cm (T(5)) were measured. SOC showed no significant difference among the four sampling sites and did not correlate with the CO(2) flux, while SWC was found to partly determine the CO(2) flux. A linear equation could adequately describe the relationship between the natural logarithm of the ecosystem respiration and the soil temperature. It is demonstrated that descending groundwater table might accelerate ecosystem respiration and the CO(2) flux from hummocks was higher than the CO(2) flux from the control site in the non-growing season. With rising temperature, the CO(2) flux from the control site accelerated faster than that from the hummocks. Our results show that ecosystem respiration was significantly lower from hummocks than at the control site in the growing season. The results on the impact of zokors on greenhouse gas emissions presented in this paper provide a useful reference to help properly manage not only this, but other litter-burrowing mammals at peatland sites.
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spelling pubmed-42773002014-12-31 Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China Zhou, Yan Li, Nana Grace, John Yang, Meng Lu, Cai Geng, Xuemeng Lei, Guangchun Zhu, Wei Deng, Yongfeng PLoS One Research Article Peatlands contain large amount of carbon stock that is vulnerable to release into the atmosphere. Mostly because of human impact, the peatlands at Zoige Wetlands face severe degradation, and the groundwater table is now lower than before, which has increased the population of the plateau zokor, a burrowing rodent. However, the impact of these changes on ecosystem carbon flows has not been studied. To investigate how the plateau zokor and the groundwater level alter the ecosystem respiration of the Zoige peatlands, we sampled the CO(2) flux of hummocks shaped by the zokors and compared it with the CO(2) flux of undisturbed sites with different groundwater table levels. The soil organic carbon (SOC), soil water content (SWC) and soil temperature at 5 cm (T(5)) were measured. SOC showed no significant difference among the four sampling sites and did not correlate with the CO(2) flux, while SWC was found to partly determine the CO(2) flux. A linear equation could adequately describe the relationship between the natural logarithm of the ecosystem respiration and the soil temperature. It is demonstrated that descending groundwater table might accelerate ecosystem respiration and the CO(2) flux from hummocks was higher than the CO(2) flux from the control site in the non-growing season. With rising temperature, the CO(2) flux from the control site accelerated faster than that from the hummocks. Our results show that ecosystem respiration was significantly lower from hummocks than at the control site in the growing season. The results on the impact of zokors on greenhouse gas emissions presented in this paper provide a useful reference to help properly manage not only this, but other litter-burrowing mammals at peatland sites. Public Library of Science 2014-12-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4277300/ /pubmed/25542023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115542 Text en © 2014 Zhou et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Zhou, Yan
Li, Nana
Grace, John
Yang, Meng
Lu, Cai
Geng, Xuemeng
Lei, Guangchun
Zhu, Wei
Deng, Yongfeng
Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China
title Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China
title_full Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China
title_fullStr Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China
title_full_unstemmed Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China
title_short Impact of Groundwater Table and Plateau Zokors (Myospalax baileyi) on Ecosystem Respiration in the Zoige Peatlands of China
title_sort impact of groundwater table and plateau zokors (myospalax baileyi) on ecosystem respiration in the zoige peatlands of china
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4277300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25542023
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115542
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