The Effect of Biochar on Marsh Phosphorus Retention: Implications for P Biogeochemical Ecosystem Services from Prescribed Burns

Details

• Journal Title:
  Estuaries and Coasts
• Personal Author:
  Edris, Pamela C. ; Laurent, Kari St. ; Yacano, Mollie R. ; Wozniak, Andrew S.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NOS (National Ocean Service)
• Description:
  Mid-Atlantic tidal salt marshes provide a number of ecosystem services including the storage of phosphorus (P) within their soils, which reduces nutrient export to estuaries. The storage of P in marsh soils is vegetation-specific, and management efforts targeting the removal of the invasive common reed, Phragmites australis may reduce the P ecosystem service. The use of prescribed burns to remove P. australis introduces biochar into marsh soils, which has been shown to sorb excess P in agricultural and wastewater systems. Biochar additions with burning may thus recoup P storage services lost via P. australis replacement. Organic and inorganic total P content and relative P mobility (determined by sequential extraction) were measured along with a suite of physical and biogeochemical parameters in field collected soil cores from a marsh that had been recently burned and two comparator marshes. Neither burn frequency nor quantities of black carbon, a biochar proxy, were positively associated with P content in any of the P pools indicating that burns are not enhancing P storage in these marshes. Biochar added to experimental plots similarly showed no P storage benefit over control plots. Instead, environmental (e.g., hydrological, vegetation, soil pH, metal content) factors dominated P concentration variations in this work. The lack of an added P storage observed in these data is indicative that biochar properties vary depending on their production conditions, and low temperature (< 400 °C) prescribed burns of P. australis are unlikely to yield biochars with pH and cation exchange properties favorable for the enhanced P sorption.
• Source:
  Estuaries and Coasts, 49(3)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-026-01687-5
• ISSN:
  1559-2723 ; 1559-2731
• Format:
  pdf
• Publisher:
  Springer Science and Business Media LLC
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA19NOS4190058
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/73074/noaa_73074_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.21 MB]
• Collection(s):
  National Ocean Service (NOS)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:01cfa6546631c845cc42c120b41d3909d86402fe82181c63f21a6421b4a4409f2dc0135f44537d8ea95c5c7c7e314215f2e074feb26312ed3ce0e743c31c64c9