Wang Yuwan, Gallego-Sala Angela, Bird Michael I, Moss Patrick, McGowan Hamish A, Benavides Juan C, Honorio Coronado Eurídice N, Feldpausch Ted R
Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
School of the Environment, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Commun Earth Environ. 2025;6(1):678. doi: 10.1038/s43247-025-02674-7. Epub 2025 Aug 19.
Amazonian peatlands are carbon-rich ecosystems that act as long-term carbon sinks but have faced increasing fire risks in recent decades. As a legacy of past fires, the contribution of pyrogenic carbon (PyC) to carbon cycling in these peatlands remains poorly understood. Here, we assess PyC accumulation variability using six cores spanning peatlands in northwestern Amazonia using hydrogen pyrolysis. We also estimate the PyC stock for the entire Amazonian peatlands by combining our field dataset with published sources. The PyC to total organic carbon ratio averaged 1.2% across our sites and increased with peat age. We estimate a total peatland PyC stock of 0.73 ± 0.61 Pg for the Amazon Basin, representing 1.6% of their TOC stock. Due to the slower turnover of PyC in peatland ecosystems, our findings indicate the importance of PyC generated by past fires and highlight the potential long-term carbon sequestration role of PyC in the future carbon cycle.
亚马逊泥炭地是富含碳的生态系统，作为长期的碳汇，但在最近几十年面临着日益增加的火灾风险。作为过去火灾的遗留物，热解碳（PyC）对这些泥炭地碳循环的贡献仍知之甚少。在这里，我们使用氢热解技术，通过跨越亚马逊西北部泥炭地的六个岩芯来评估PyC积累的变异性。我们还通过将我们的实地数据集与已发表的资料相结合，估算了整个亚马逊泥炭地的PyC储量。我们研究地点的PyC与总有机碳的平均比率为1.2%，并随泥炭年龄的增长而增加。我们估计亚马逊盆地泥炭地的PyC总储量为0.73±0.61Pg，占其总有机碳储量的1.6%。由于泥炭地生态系统中PyC的周转较慢，我们的研究结果表明过去火灾产生的PyC的重要性，并突出了PyC在未来碳循环中潜在的长期碳固存作用。
