Abstract
Seagrasses export a substantial portion of their primary production, both in particulate and dissolved organic form, but the fate of this export production remains unaccounted for in terms of seagrass carbon sequestration. Here we review available evidence on the fate of seagrass carbon export to conclude that this represents a significant contribution to carbon sequestration, both in sediments outside seagrass meadows and in the deep sea. The evidence presented implies that the contribution of seagrass meadows to carbon sequestration has been underestimated by only including carbon burial within seagrass sediments.
Highlights
Seagrass meadows have been identified as intense carbon sinks, accumulating large carbon stocks in their sediments (Duarte et al, 2005, 2013; Mcleod et al, 2011; Fourqurean et al, 2012)
A fraction of the exported 24.3% NPP of seagrass meadows contributes to carbon sequestration beyond the meadows, so that the present focus on storage of organic carbon in sediments within seagrass meadows alone underestimates the true magnitude of the carbon sequestration that seagrasses support
We recently reported that export of materials from macroalgal stands support a large carbon sequestration, comprised by macroalgal carbon buried in sediments or sequestered below 1000 m in the deep ocean (Krause-Jensen and Duarte, 2016)
Summary
Seagrasses export a substantial portion of their primary production, both in particulate and dissolved organic form, but the fate of this export production remains unaccounted for in terms of seagrass carbon sequestration. We review available evidence on the fate of seagrass carbon export to conclude that this represents a significant contribution to carbon sequestration, both in sediments outside seagrass meadows and in the deep sea. The evidence presented implies that the contribution of seagrass meadows to carbon sequestration has been underestimated by only including carbon burial within seagrass sediments. Specialty section: This article was submitted to Marine Ecosystem Ecology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
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