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Carbon storage in seagrass ecosystems along the Andaman coast of Thailand

  • Milica Stankovic

    Milica Stankovic is a recent PhD graduate from Prince of Songkla University. Her work is focused on organic carbon storage within the seagrass ecosystem and the response of seagrass meadows in climate change.

         , Naruemon Tantipisanuh

    Naruemon Tantipisanuh is a landscape ecologist interested in landscape-level vertebrate conservation using remote sensing and geographic information systems. Her PhD work supports systematic conservation planning in Thailand and the Indo-Burma hotspot. Currently, she is working with colleagues to conduct surveys of small carnivores in coastal wetlands and mangroves in southern Thailand. She has plans to do further research on application of Bayesian methods for conservation management, application of MARXAN with Zone (for land-use zoning), image classification using object-based method, urban conservation and ecosystem services.

         and Anchana Prathep

    Anchana Prathep leads the Seaweed and Seagrass Research Unit at Prince of Songkla University, Thailand. Her work focuses on seaweed and seagrass ecology. She is recently trying to understand how much seaweeds and seagrasses contribute to carbon sequestration and storage as well as their ecosystem services, and how they respond to a changing world.

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Published/Copyright: September 12, 2018
Botanica Marina
From the journal Botanica Marina Volume 61 Issue 5

Abstract

Seagrass ecosystems are important contributors to mitigation of climate change, since they are responsible for large carbon sinks. However, there is limited knowledge regarding the importance of variability of carbon storage in various ecosystems. In this study, we estimated carbon storage in several structurally different seagrass meadows along the west coast of Thailand and determined whether degree of exposure, human disturbance, and meadow type influenced carbon storage within these meadows. Carbon content within the living vegetation was on average 3±2.7 Mg ha−1, whilst average storage of carbon in the sediment was 122±35.3 Mg ha−1. Meadow type and disturbance had a significant influence on total carbon storage in the ecosystem, while the degree of exposure of the bay did not show great differences. Uniform meadows had a higher average total carbon storage than mixed meadows (133±36.2 and 110±41.3 Mg ha−1, respectively). Undisturbed meadows had a higher average total carbon storage than disturbed ones (140±36.5 and 103±34.8 Mg ha−1, respectively). The results obtained contribute to our understanding of carbon storage on an ecosystem scale and can provide a baseline for proper management, conservation, and climate change studies in the region.

Keywords: blue carbon; carbon sink; marine vegetation; Southeast Asia

About the authors

Milica Stankovic

Milica Stankovic is a recent PhD graduate from Prince of Songkla University. Her work is focused on organic carbon storage within the seagrass ecosystem and the response of seagrass meadows in climate change.

Naruemon Tantipisanuh

Naruemon Tantipisanuh is a landscape ecologist interested in landscape-level vertebrate conservation using remote sensing and geographic information systems. Her PhD work supports systematic conservation planning in Thailand and the Indo-Burma hotspot. Currently, she is working with colleagues to conduct surveys of small carnivores in coastal wetlands and mangroves in southern Thailand. She has plans to do further research on application of Bayesian methods for conservation management, application of MARXAN with Zone (for land-use zoning), image classification using object-based method, urban conservation and ecosystem services.

Anchana Prathep

Anchana Prathep leads the Seaweed and Seagrass Research Unit at Prince of Songkla University, Thailand. Her work focuses on seaweed and seagrass ecology. She is recently trying to understand how much seaweeds and seagrasses contribute to carbon sequestration and storage as well as their ecosystem services, and how they respond to a changing world.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Higher Education Research Promotion and Thailand’s Education Hub for Southern Region of ASEAN Countries Project Office of the Higher Education Commission and the Graduate School of Prince of Songkla University to MS, and grant no. BDC-PG3-160017 to AP. Special thanks go to the Seaweed and Seagrass Research Unit team at Prince of Songkla University and to Mr. Dejan Davidovic for their great assistance, especially during the fieldwork. The authors are grateful to Integration and Application Network (IAN), University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Cambridge, Maryland, for providing freely available graphical illustrations of the seagrass species.

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2017-0101).

Article note

This article is related to special issue Seagrass research in Southeast Asia, published in Botanica Marina 2018, vol. 61, issue 3.

Received: 2017-11-21
Accepted: 2018-08-21
Published Online: 2018-09-12
Published in Print: 2018-09-25

©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. In this issue
  3. Physiology and ecology
  4. Carbon storage in seagrass ecosystems along the Andaman coast of Thailand
  5. Ten years of conservation efforts enhance seagrass cover and carbon storage in Thailand
  6. Shading by invasive seaweeds reduces photosynthesis of maerl from the Ría de Vigo (NW Spain)
  7. More than meets the eye: regional specialisation and microbial cover of the blade of Porphyra umbilicalis (Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
  8. Taxonomy/phylogeny and biogeography
  9. Pyropia lunae sp. nov. and Pyropia islae sp. nov. (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) from the Philippines
  10. A checklist of the benthic marine algae of the Northern Arabian Sea coast of the Sultanate of Oman
  11. Genomics
  12. Agrobacterium-mediated gene delivery and transient expression in the red macroalga Chondrus crispus
  13. Characterization of a respiratory burst oxidase homolog from Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis (Rhodophyta) during stress and phytohormone treatments
https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2017-0101
Keywords for this article
blue carbon; carbon sink; marine vegetation; Southeast Asia

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. In this issue
  3. Physiology and ecology
  4. Carbon storage in seagrass ecosystems along the Andaman coast of Thailand
  5. Ten years of conservation efforts enhance seagrass cover and carbon storage in Thailand
  6. Shading by invasive seaweeds reduces photosynthesis of maerl from the Ría de Vigo (NW Spain)
  7. More than meets the eye: regional specialisation and microbial cover of the blade of Porphyra umbilicalis (Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
  8. Taxonomy/phylogeny and biogeography
  9. Pyropia lunae sp. nov. and Pyropia islae sp. nov. (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) from the Philippines
  10. A checklist of the benthic marine algae of the Northern Arabian Sea coast of the Sultanate of Oman
  11. Genomics
  12. Agrobacterium-mediated gene delivery and transient expression in the red macroalga Chondrus crispus
  13. Characterization of a respiratory burst oxidase homolog from Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis (Rhodophyta) during stress and phytohormone treatments
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