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Appreciating interconnectivity between habitats is key to blue carbon management
Author(s) -
Smale Dan A,
Moore Pippa J,
Queirós Ana M,
Higgs Nicholas D,
Burrows Michael T
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
frontiers in ecology and the environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.918
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1540-9309
pISSN - 1540-9295
DOI - 10.1002/fee.1765
Subject(s) - marine research , biological sciences , library science , ecology , geography , oceanography , biology , geology , computer science , computational biology
We welcome the recent synthesis by
Howard et al. (2017), which drew
attention to the role of marine systems
and natural carbon sequestration
in the oceans as a fundamental
aspect of climate-change
mitigation.
The importance of long-term
carbon
storage in marine habitats (ie “blue
carbon”) is rapidly gaining recognition
and is increasingly a
focus of national and international
attempts to mitigate rising atmospheric
emissions of carbon dioxide.
However, effectively managing blue
carbon requires an appreciation of
the inherent connectivity between
marine populations and habitats.
More so than their terrestrial counterparts,
marine ecosystems are
“open”, with high rates of transfer of
energy, matter, genetic material, and
species across regional seascapes
(Kinlan and Gaines 2003). We suggest
that policy frameworks, and the
science underpinning them, should
focus not only on carbon sink habitats
but also on carbon source habitats,
which play critical roles in
marine carbon cycling and natural
carbon sequestration in the oceans.