Document Type

Abstract

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.5343/bms.2024.0042

Publication Title

Bulletin of Marine Science

Volume

101

Issue

3

Pages

1710-1711

Conference Name

6th Mangrove Macrobenthos and Management Meeting, 24-28 July 2023, Cartagena, Columbia

Abstract

Mangroves and other blue carbon ecosystems are important for climate through the storage and sequestration of carbon. Most research estimates carbon dynamics by subsampling central portions of the ecosystem and are then upscales using habitat maps to patch, landscape, or regional levels. However, heterogeneity is rarely accounted for - particularly at edges. Further, adjacent tidal flat ecosystems have only recently been considered for carbon storage, but may be undervalued if areas where they transition with vegetated systems are not accounted for. To address the lack of information at coastal ecotones, we examined both soil carbon storage and carbon dioxide flux across the coastal seascape (mangrove-tidal flat) and compared values to aboveground mangrove cover metrics in Singapore. We established six transects across two sites, extending from vegetated mangrove patches out into adjacent unvegetated tidal flats. Plots were established at end points within each ecosystem, at the aboveground transition, and then at increasing intervals (1-8m) from the transition into both ecosystems. Our results highlight large disparities between discrete aboveground vegetation transitions and gradual belowground transitions for soil carbon storage. Further, soil carbon dioxide flux values show an edge effect where values are on average 2-6 times greater than within either ecosystem. We used regression-based techniques to scale up transect based measurements to the landscape level and account for the distance from the aboveground transition between vegetated and unvegetated ecosystems. We found mangrove soil carbon storage was overestimated by 4%-9% and tidal flat soil carbon storage showed a 4%-14% disparity. By gaining a better understanding of carbon dynamics across the coastal seascape we can provide more accurate carbon estimates, detect patterns and processes only seen with spatial analysis, and highlight the importance of a seascape perspective for ecological studies, ecosystem service assessments, and management.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors.

This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND) License.

Original Publication Citation

Yando, E. S., Alemu, I. J. B., Kiah Eng, L., Sloey, T. M., van Breugel, M., & Friess, B. N. (2025). Carbon dynamics across the mangrove-tidal flat ecotone in a tropical seascape. Bulletin of Marine Science, 101(3), 1710-1711. https://doi.org/10.5343/bms.2024.0042

ORCID

0000-0002-8786-6178 (Yando), 0000-0003-2780-1687 (Sloey)

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