Putting the carbon back into peat: Palaeoecological contribution to the enhancement of natural carbon sequestration of Indonesian peatlands

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hermann Behling
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Physical Geography
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 404867302

In the past, Indonesian peatlands played a significant global role as a carbon (C) sink for they store around 10% of the total global peat carbon pool. However, due to recent, rapid land use change and conversion, the large C emissions from these ecosystems are accelerating global climate warming whilst the C sink capacity has been greatly degraded. In order to combat climate change, not only is the reduction of C emissions necessary, but also the enhancement and optimization of C sequestration through peatland conservation and restoration. For current peatland conservation and restoration to achieve success, adequate ecological knowledge is required. In particular, peatland C sequestration can likely only be optimized by a combination of measures to simultaneously restore both peatland hydrology and vegetation cover, i.e. peat swamp forest (PSF), to establish suitable conditions for peat formation and C accumulation. One approach to stimulating C sequestration would be to plant the PSF taxa that are responsible for rapid C accumulation rates (CARs) in Indonesian peatlands, but which might be CAR-related species is difficult to assess through direct observation thus this remains an unexplored research area. We propose to address this critical knowledge gap with this research that aims (i) to provide long-term ecological perspectives on Indonesian peatlands and their C sequestration functions, which is important to study peatland development, the factors driving peatland and its CARs dynamics and ecosystem responses to environmental change; and (ii) to identify the assemblages of PSF taxa composition that have engineered their rapid CARs. The proposed research will be conducted by performing multi-proxy palaeoecological studies on cores taken from the peatlands that still harbor large relatively intact PSF. Bulk density and Corg content analyses will be applied for the determination of peat CAR. Meanwhile, subfossil pollen and spore, modern pollen spectra and an innovative DNA-based method for plant remains identification will be used to identify the past vegetation growing on the peatlands. Additionally, carbon isotope (δ13Corg), Corg content and macro-charcoal analyses will be conducted to assess the record of environmental change within peatland and the responses of the ecosystem to past climatic variabilities. The outcomes of this research will contribute to (i) the improvement of peatland conservation and restoration strategies in Indonesia; (ii) the enhancement of C sequestration capacities of Indonesian peatlands; (iii) atmospheric C removal and global climate change mitigation; (iv) raising of C revenues for local government and stakeholders.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants