TY  - INPR
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05389-3
KW  - Carbon cycle
KW  -  Palaeoclimate
KW  -  Tropical ecology
TI  - Hydroclimatic vulnerability of peat carbon in the central Congo Basin
N2  - The forested swamps of the central Congo Basin store approximately 30?billion metric tonnes of carbon in peat1,2. Little is known about the vulnerability of these carbon stocks. Here we investigate this vulnerability using peat cores from a large interfluvial basin in the Republic of the Congo and palaeoenvironmental methods. We find that peat accumulation began at least at 17,500?calibrated years before present (cal.?yr?BP; taken as AD 1950). Our data show that the peat that accumulated between around 7,500 to around 2,000?cal.?yr?BP is much more decomposed compared with older and younger peat. Hydrogen isotopes of plant waxes indicate a drying trend, starting at approximately 5,000 cal. yr BP and culminating at approximately 2,000?cal.?yr?BP, coeval with a decline in dominant swamp forest taxa. The data imply that the drying climate probably resulted in a regional drop in the water table, which triggered peat decomposition, including the loss of peat carbon accumulated prior to the onset of the drier conditions. After approximately 2,000?cal.?yr?BP, our data show that the drying trend ceased, hydrologic conditions stabilized and peat accumulation resumed. This reversible accumulation-loss-accumulation pattern is consistent with other peat cores across the region, indicating that the carbon stocks of the central Congo peatlands may lie close to a climatically driven drought threshold. Further research should quantify the combination of peatland threshold behaviour and droughts driven by anthropogenic carbon emissions that may trigger this positive carbon cycle feedback in the Earth system.
PB  - Springer Science and Business Media LLC
A1  - Garcin, Yannick
A1  - Schefuß, Enno
A1  - Dargie, Greta C
A1  - Hawthorne, Donna
A1  - Lawson, Ian T
A1  - Sebag, David
A1  - Biddulph, George E
A1  - Crezee, Bart
A1  - Bocko, Yannick E
A1  - Ifo, Suspense A
A1  - Mampouya Wenina, Y Emmanuel
A1  - Mbemba, Mackline
A1  - Ewango, Corneille EN
A1  - Emba, Ovide
A1  - Bola, Pierre
A1  - Kanyama Tabu, Joseph
A1  - Tyrrell, Genevieve
A1  - Young, Dylan M
A1  - Gassier, Ghislain
A1  - Girkin, Nicholas T
A1  - Vane, Christopher H
A1  - Adatte, Thierry
A1  - Baird, Andy J
A1  - Boom, Arnoud
A1  - Gulliver, Pauline
A1  - Morris, Paul J
A1  - Page, Susan E
A1  - Sjögersten, Sofie
A1  - Lewis, Simon L
Y1  - 2022/11/02/
SN  - 0028-0836
N1  - © 2022 Springer Nature Limited. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
ID  - discovery10160191
AV  - public
JF  - Nature
ER  -