Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionMarine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Date
2016-09-12Online Publication Date
2016-09-12Print Publication Date
2016-10Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/622473
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Vegetated coastal habitats have been identified as important carbon sinks. In contrast to angiosperm-based habitats such as seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangroves, marine macroalgae have largely been excluded from discussions of marine carbon sinks. Macroalgae are the dominant primary producers in the coastal zone, but they typically do not grow in habitats that are considered to accumulate large stocks of organic carbon. However, the presence of macroalgal carbon in the deep sea and sediments, where it is effectively sequestered from the atmosphere, has been reported. A synthesis of these data suggests that macroalgae could represent an important source of the carbon sequestered in marine sediments and the deep ocean. We propose two main modes for the transport of macroalgae to the deep ocean and sediments: macroalgal material drifting through submarine canyons, and the sinking of negatively buoyant macroalgal detritus. A rough estimate suggests that macroalgae could sequester about 173 TgC yr â '1 (with a range of 61-268 TgC yr â '1) globally. About 90% of this sequestration occurs through export to the deep sea, and the rest through burial in coastal sediments. This estimate exceeds that for carbon sequestered in angiosperm-based coastal habitats.Citation
Krause-Jensen D, Duarte CM (2016) Substantial role of macroalgae in marine carbon sequestration. Nature Geoscience 9: 737–742. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2790.Publisher
Springer NatureJournal
Nature GeoscienceDOI
10.1038/ngeo2790ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/ngeo2790