Bogs hold a key to climate solutions through carbon sequestration, but many have been drained
Swakhs is a huge amount of carbon dioxide. But even with scientists working to better understand the swamps, the wetlands are threatened.
In the cold afternoon, the nature scientist and teacher Mary Collele directed the visitors on a cold tour of the Folo Bouge Natural area in the north of Illinois.
Colwell referred to one of the stars of the round: SPHAGNUM MOSS, who was wandering from a corridor that passes through wetlands. With their encouragement, the group touched the small leaves that resemble the branch of light green algae that grow at a nearby tree base.
“Then in the warmer weather, this is very smooth,” said Colwell. “It is unrealistic.”
Swide ecosystems are among the most efficient carbon storage systems in the world. It covers only 3 percent of the surface of the earth, however it carries up to 30 percent of the global carbon.
Keystone species from Bog, Moss SPHANUM, play a major role in storage capacity. SPHAGNUM works like a sponge – it carries up to 20 times its weight in the water.
“SPHAGNUM MOSS itself is incredible,” Kullele pointed out. “It is very slow to grow.”
It grows very slowly, in fact, it may take thousands and thousands of years to develop peat swamp. Volo Bog has begun to be formed from a ice lake for more than 6000 years. It still transcends the center of the lake, called “Volo Bog”.
But while straight ecosystems provide habitats, liquidation water and carbon, they disappear for decades. In Illinois alone, it has lost more than 90 percent of wetlands. There are about 110 million acres in the United States, with more than half in Alaska – but nearly 70 percent has been drained and developed over the past hundred years.
Open SPHAGNUM MOSS Secrets
Scientists believe that Sphagnum may carry important lessons about carbon dioxide insulation, but there is a lot that they do not know.
Sona Pande is the main researcher at the Danforth Plant Science Center on the outskirts of Saint Louis, and it is part of a team looking for isolation and swamps.
Jess Savage / Wnij
Pandnesse said: “The first time I saw a peat algae under the microscope, I literally fell in love with her.” This is the only way to describe it. It is nice to look at.
Pandness’s research team is cultivated in a laboratory, studies his DNA, tries to know how to threaten climate change – and how it can be a solution.
The moss excels in storing carbon. It flourishes in water acidic conditions. It does not decompose, almost behaves like a giant of live carbon mat.
But when it is threatened, the carbon should go to a place. The main threat of swamps – drainage for development and agriculture – presents these aqueous water species of air, which begins the process of decomposition of microbes.
“All carbon stored in peat swamps is currently being released to the air,” Pandness said, noting how it will become a greenhouse gas.
She said if we understand these algae at a microscopic level, scientists and conservative specialists can protect and restore them better on a wider scale. Its research can make enlightened decisions about species that will be more successful in re -introducing them as part of possible restoration projects.
Protect the rest
Historically, the swamps have been estimated, and it is often discharged to make the Earth more use.
Trica Atwood, associate professor and environmental world in the ecosystems at Utah State University, said that people slowly began to see them in a new light.
“There were major changes in people’s perception of these wetlands just because they do not usually hit the 10 best places for people,” Atwood said. “Governments began to realize that they have these other benefits.”
Jess Savage / Wnij
While forests and soil of forests are often received by their carbon isolation, Atwood said that wetlands are more important, as they store 30 to 50 times faster and a higher rate than other systems.
“They are not like any other ecosystem on Earth,” she said.
Although some wetlands are more valuable, the Supreme Court Resolution 2023 has declined in most of the current protection of these ecosystems. Sackett V decision spent. EPA that the clean water law does not protect wetlands that do not constantly connect to greater bodies of water. The decision was criticized for the development of ecosystems such as swamps at risk.
Rebecca Hamer is a lawyer for the ICTA team for freshwater in the Board of Defense of Natural Resources, a group of environmental advocacy. She said that peat swamps are especially affected by the SACKETT decision because they are often isolated from large water bodies.
She said: “They generally start their lives with a lunger that does not contain drainage or contact with another water body, which allows gathering in vegetation and vegetable materials, and Moses SPHANUM, which grows there to collect more than thousands of years.”
About half of the United States has legal protection for wetlands, but these ecosystems are left in 24 states without any protection, legal or otherwise.
There are swamps spread throughout the Mississippi River basin to the coast.
Hamer said the decision could have a semi -permanent effect on the swamps.
She said: “When peat swamps are destroyed or contaminated, and are affected by development, we lose all these benefits.” “We can not really repeat the peat swamps. They take thousands of years to form. So as soon as they leave, they went.”
Culwell, who takes visitors on tours in Vollo Bug, says more work is needed to protect the remainder.
She said, “We are trying to restore these natural systems, and when we restore them, they can increase the amount of carbon dioxide that they will take.”
This story is a product Mississippi River Office AG & Water DeskIndependent reports network based in Missouri UniversityIn partnership with General media harvestCooperating in public media rooms in the Middle West.
