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Seagrass sediment organic carbon burial rates are globally significant.
Nature Communications · · Journal Article · Open access
Arias-Ortiz, Lafratta + more
Abstract ↗AI summary
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Seagrasses bury organic carbon in sediments at 25 ± 3 g OC m-2 yr-1 (geometric mean), and a global area-weighted average of 33 ± 9 g OC m-2 yr-1.
- Why it matters: Uncertainty in global seagrass carbon sequestration stems from early estimates built from mixed methods and biased core datasets across geography and seagrass taxa.
- What they did: The authors reanalyzed 332 sediment cores spanning the last century, linking burial rates to sediment OC content and sediment accumulation via a negative exponential pattern from mineral dilution.
- The result: Using a revised seagrass area of 247,700–366,400 km2, they estimate 6–15 Tg C yr-1 global burial, with seagrasses contributing 3–4% to 3–6% of total oceanic OC burial.
The findingWhy it mattersWhat they didThe result
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- Open access
- 4 cites