Salt marsh carbon dynamics under altered hydrologic regimes and elevated CO2 conditions, Louisiana, USA (2014-2015)

Plant-mediated processes are often important in determining carbon cycling and storage in ecosystems. With climate-induced changes in the environment, plant-associated processes may also shift. Salt marshes in particular are useful systems to investigate plant-mediated carbon cycling, as these systems experience both sea-level rise and increased carbon dioxide concentrations due to climate change, in addition to stochastically experiencing extreme drought and flood conditions. We measured biomass, soil, and gas carbon pools and the fluxes between those pools using a mesocosm approach in a salt marsh system, to investigate the response of plant-mediated carbon cycling to near-term climate change.