New paper in Environmental Research Letters identifies the most carbon-dense ecosystem in Amazonia

Draper BBC smallDraper et al. “The distribution and amount of carbon in the largest peatland complex in Amazonia” shows, using a wide range of new field data, that peatland pole forest is the most carbon-dense type ecosystem in Amazonia, when below-ground carbon storage is taken into account. This work also revised the central estimate for carbon storage in the Pastaza-Marañón Fan to 3.14 Pg distributed across 35,600 km2 of peatland, though the uncertainties on these figures remain large. The paper is available open-access online at http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/12/124017. It also received coverage by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30448519).

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