Winton, R.S. orcid.org/0000-0002-9048-9342, Benavides, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-9694-2195, Mendoza, E. et al. (21 more authors) (Accepted: 2025) Widespread carbon-dense peatlands in the Colombian lowlands. Environmental Research Letters. (In Press)
Abstract
Peatlands are some of the world's most carbon-dense ecosystems and release substantial quantities of greenhouse gases when degraded. However, conserving peatlands in many tropical areas is challenging due to limited knowledge of their distribution. To address this, we surveyed soils and plant communities in Colombia's eastern lowlands, where few peatlands have previously been described. We documented peat soils >40 cm thick at 51 of more than 100 surveyed wetlands. We use our data to update a regional peatland classification, which includes a new and possibly widespread peatland type, "the white-sand peatland," as well as two distinctive open-canopy sub-types. Analysis of peat bulk density and organic matter content from 39 intact peat cores indicates that the average per-area carbon densities of these sites (490 to 1230 Mg C ha-1, depending on type) is 4 to 10 times the typical carbon stock of a (non-peatland) Amazonian forest. We used remote sensing to upscale our observations, generating the first data-driven peatland map for the region. The total estimated carbon stock of these peatlands of 1.91 petagrams (Pg C) (2-sigma confidence interval, 0.60 to 4.22) approaches that of South America's largest known peatland complex in the northern Peruvian Amazon, indicating that substantial peat carbon stores on the continent have yet to be documented. These observations indicate that tropical peatlands may be far more diverse in form and structure and broadly distributed than is widely understood, which could have important implications for tropical peatland conservation strategies.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Mar 2025 10:28 |
Last Modified: | 21 Mar 2025 10:34 |
Status: | In Press |
Publisher: | IOP Publishing |
Identification Number: | 10.1088/1748-9326/adbc03 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:224038 |