Morris, PJ orcid.org/0000-0002-1145-1478, Swindles, GT orcid.org/0000-0001-8039-1790, Valdes, PJ et al. (6 more authors) (2018) Global peatland initiation driven by regionally asynchronous warming. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115 (19). pp. 4851-4856. ISSN 0027-8424
Abstract
Widespread establishment of peatlands since the Last Glacial Maximum represents the activation of a globally important carbon sink, but the drivers of peat initiation are unclear. The role of climate in peat initiation is particularly poorly understood. We used a general circulation model to simulate local changes in climate during the initiation of 1,097 peatlands around the world. We find that peat initiation in deglaciated landscapes in both hemispheres was driven primarily by warming growing seasons, likely through enhanced plant productivity, rather than by any increase in effective precipitation. In Western Siberia, which remained ice-free throughout the last glacial period, the initiation of the world’s largest peatland complex was globally unique in that it was triggered by an increase in effective precipitation that inhibited soil respiration and allowed wetland plant communities to establish. Peat initiation in the tropics was only weakly related to climate change, and appears to have been driven primarily by nonclimatic mechanisms such as waterlogging due to tectonic subsidence. Our findings shed light on the genesis and Holocene climate space of one of the world’s most carbon-dense ecosystem types, with implications for understanding trajectories of ecological change under changing future climates.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2018, Published under the PNAS license. This is a reproduction of a article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717838115. Uploaded in accordance with the publishers self archiving policy. |
Keywords: | bioclimate; biogeography; deglaciation; basal date catalog; GCM |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC UNSPECIFIED NERC NE/K008536/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 04 Apr 2018 11:49 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2018 00:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | National Academy of Sciences |
Identification Number: | 10.1073/pnas.1717838115 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:129090 |