Carbon sequestration in different wetland plant communities in the Big Cypress Swamp region of southwest Florida

Wetlands offer many ecosystem services, including the long-term sequestering of carbon (C) in soil. Here we present a study of C sequestration rates in a relatively undisturbed wetland landscape of southwest Florida. Accordingly, carbon sequestration was determined in four wetland plant communities and an adjacent hydric pine flatwood community that represent a gradient of inundation extent. Going from the wettest to the driest, communities were designated as: deep slough, bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), wet prairie and pond cypress (Taxodium distichum var. imbricarium). An adjacent hydric pine flatwood community was also included in the study as a reference upland site. Three soil cores were collected from each of these communities and were analyzed for total C content. Core samples were also analyzed for 137Cs and 210Pb activity to estimate accretion rates. C sequestration rates (g-C m−2 yr−1) were the highest in the deep slough (98 ± 9) and bald cypress (98 ± 5) followed by the pond cypress (64 ± 7)...