As part of Annabel Cole’s BSc project (University of York), researchers from Peatland-ES-UK and Moor House came together to look at peat cores to understand carbon accumulation rates.
In 2018 the Peatland-ES-UK project published a paper in Geo (Heinemeyer et al. 2018) outlining the value of peat core assessments for understanding past soil carbon accumulation rates within a management context of heather burning. The study outlined the importance of assessing charcoal impacts as part of fine-scale peat segment assessments of bulk density and organic carbon content.
The study found a positive relationship between the number of charcoal particles from heather burning, bulk density and organic carbon content which related to increased carbon accumulation. Another study by Rob Marrs (Marrs et al., 2019) also studied the impacts of heather burning on carbon accumulation. However, Marrs et al. (2019) did not measure peat density and carbon content as detailed as Heinemeyer et al. (2018) as the latter lacked (no burn) control plots.
Taking peat cores with the University of York’s PeatTeam from the Moor House ECT site’s Hard Hill plots under guidance by Prof Rob Marrs (from left to right: Luke Andrews, Tom Holmes, Rob Marrs, Anabel Cole). Picture credit: Andreas Heinemeyer.
Whilst neither study claims to have measured carbon budgets (as peat cores do not allow this), both studies support the view that heather burning does not necessarily lead to a loss or reduced rates of peat carbon accumulation. Moreover, if charcoal effects are taken into account, carbon accumulation rates could be increased depending on site conditions (i.e. wetness). Therefore, the teams collaborated to resample the Hard Hill plots including the Moor House control plots to provide another more detailed assessment of carbon accumulation rates. This will inform the ongoing debate around carbon storage on heather-dominated peatlands.
