For decades, soil has been treated as an everlasting food machine rather than as a fragile living thing, and it is reaching a crisis point. Understanding how the soil microbiome interacts with the environment and helping farmers embrace new sustainable methods can have a beneficial impact on the soil, and consequently, our health.
Abstract
Tidal marshes rank among the ecosystems with the highest capacity to sequester and store organic carbon (C ) on earth. To inform conservation of coastal vegetated ecosystems for climate change mitigation, this study investigated the factors driving variability in carbon storage. We estimated soil C stocks in tidal marshes across temperate Western Australia and assessed differences among geomorphic settings (marine and fluvial deltas, and mid-estuary) and vegetation type (Sarcocornia quinqueflora and Juncus kraussii) linked to soil biogeochemistry. Soil C stocks within fluvial and mid-estuary settings were significantly higher (209 ± 14 and 211 ± 20 Mg C ha , respectively; 1-m-thick soils) than in marine counterparts (156 ± 12 Mg C ha ), which can be partially explained by higher preservation of soil C in fluvial and mid-estuary settings rich in fine-grained (