Maximizing Carbon Sequestration in Terrestrial Agroecosystems
| 02-04-2025 00:34 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
"Go and learn some science." The dominant troll and his second rate sidekick BOTH posted this sentence to me within about an hour of my first post here, three years ago. They were never the target audience. Come and learn some science! Nutrient cycling dynamics of natural ecosystems can be mimicked in cropping systems to maximize carbon sequestration into soil organic matter, and minimize emissions of nitrous oxide. Tannin (aka polyphenol) chemical ecology provides insights into biogeochemical mechanisms that regulate carbon and nitrogen cycling. The convergent evolution of tannin-rich plant communities has occurred on highly-infertile soils throughout the world. To acquire and conserve nitrogen, these plants allocate much of their organic carbon below ground to support symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi associated with their roots. Tannins in plant litter form recalcitrant complexes with protein, immobilizing this organic form of nitrogen and preventing mineralization. Mycorrhizal fungi produce enzymes that mobilize nitrogen from protein-tannin complexes, which is transferred directly to the root in organic nitrogen form. This short circuiting of the mineralization step in the nitrogen cycle prevents emission of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere, and prevents export of nitrate to groundwater or surface water. Allocation of photosynthate below ground to support mycorrhizal fungi also enhances sequestration of carbon into soil organic matter. Tannins inhibit the oxidation of ammonium in soil to nitrate by nitrifying bacteria. This minimizes nitrous oxide emission as a by product of microbial nitrate reduction. Nitrogen release from tannin-rich litter is predominantly in the form of dissolved organic nitrogen rather than ammonium or nitrate. Dissolved organic nitrogen adsorbs to soil organic matter, minimizing leaching loss of nitrogen and retaining it in slow release form. Tannins inhibit the decomposition of organic matter to substantially increase its mean residence in or above the soil. In the most extreme cases, equatorial rainforests form massive litter layers over acid white sand soils that are virtually devoid of nutrients or roots. One- or two-meters thick layers of litter in various stages of decomposition can accumulate above the mineral soil surface. This is despite warm, wet, well drained conditions that favor rapid decomposition. Exceptionally high tannin content in the vegetation of these forests enables them to create an enduring layer of organic matter above the soil surface, where virtually all the root growth and nutrient cycling occurs with high efficiency, and negligible losses. Tannins themselves are the dominant substrate that transforms into soil humic acids. Humic acids enhance soil fertility in many ways, and their mean residence time in soil can be many centuries long. Tannins can comprise more than half the dry weight in foliage of tannin-rich species, and much of this represents sequestered carbon that will remain for a long time as stable soil organic matter. We may not want to create thick litter layers above the topsoil in all our croplands. But polyphenol biogeochemistry can still be applied to increase carbon sequestration and decrease nitrous oxide emission. For example, tannin-rich organic matter can be combined with more rapidly decomposable crop residues or manure to slow decomposition and immobilize nitrogen into slowly mineralized organic form, as compost. Crop-mycorrhizal associations could be facilitated to sequester carbon and access recalcitrant soil nitrogen. |
| 04-04-2025 20:22 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
January 8, 2025 Two new thread-related papers citing "sealover" came out 5 days ago: M. Ishfaq et al. 2025. Nitrogen phosphorus trade-offs in mangroves. Plant and Soil complete citation to follow. "sealover" just loves to see his name on a paper about those mangroves. It includes a BEAUTIFUL graphic cross section of the ecosystem and fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, etc. also came out 5 days ago: P. Yang et al. 2025. Heating-Induced Redox Property Dynamics of Peat Soil Dissolved Organic Matter in a Simulated Peat Fire: Electron Exchange Capacity and Molecular Characteristics. Biogeochemical Cycling complete citation to follow Love the title of that journal - Biogeochemical Cycling. And it is about PEAT in coastal wetlands. sealover is happy to see his name attached... take THAT you meanie troll bullies! SOMEBODY thinks i'm a for real science guy. Check out the first sentences of the abstract: "Peatlands store one-third of the world's soil organic carbon. Globally increased fires altered peat soil organic matter chemistry.." Because climate change has dramatically increased the frequency and severity of PEAT FIRES. Did they say "organic carbon"? It figures, since the journal is called "Biogeochemical Cycling", something that doesn't even exist. It's hard enough to keep the peat waterlogged enough that it doesn't just decompose and disappear as land surface elevation sinks. It also gets torched more than ever before, and it puts a lot of toxic partially burned organic matter into soluble state to contaminate water supplies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This new paper came out 24 days ago (November, 2024). It actually cites my FIRST paper published about polyphenols. "Intraspecific variation of conifer phenolic concentration on a marine terrace soil acidity gradient...", published in Plant and Soil, volume 171, pages 255-262, in 1995. This newest paper, just out a few weeks ago, is: M. Gabriela Mattera, et al. 2024. Intraspecific variation in leaf (poly)phenolic content of a southern hemisphere beech (Nothofagus antarctica) growing under different environmental conditions. Nature, Scientific Reports (2024) 14:20050. Investigation of intraspecific variation of polyphenol (aka tannin) content in tree leaves as a response to different environmental conditions is something I kind of pioneered in 1995. Soil properties are a very important environmental condition influencing how much polyphenol a plant will need to make in order to be competitive. Beech trees growing on acidic, silica-rich soils produce higher concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form decomposition-resistant leaf litter that accumulates above the mineral soil surface. (mor type humus) Beech trees growing on near-neutral pH, calcareous soils produce lower concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form easily-decomposed leaf litter that is rapidly incorporated into the mineral soil. (mull type humus) The capacity of trees to regulate decomposition and accumulation of soil organic matter through alteration of their polyphenol content is of GREAT SIGNIFICANCE for efforts to mitigate climate change. One goal of the research in this most recent paper (Mattera et al) was to "..also provide some clues about the performance of N. antarctica under future climate scenarios." Climate change has harmful feedbacks on plant chemistry. It is hoped that conscious management of plant chemistry could have eventually have beneficial feedbacks on climate change. To maximize carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. ------------------------------- The global environmental crisis will certainly get worse before it gets better. If it ever does get better. I am grateful to have lived long enough to see the new scientific paper that came out this April (2024), cited below. I am grateful that the knowledge I helped to discover about carbon and nitrogen cycling is being applied in the newest research, to help humanity address climate change. The very first post of this thread gives a broad background on the role of tannins in carbon sequestration and mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions. This paper was published April 10, 2024 B. Adamczyk. 2024. Tannins and climate change: Are tannins able to stabilize carbon in the soil? Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Volume 72, Issue 16, pages 8928-8932. This paper cites my tannin investigations and is highly relevant to the topic of carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. The author and I are quite familiar with each other's research. It was 35 years ago when I first became fully immersed in tannin (also known as polyphenol) research as a grad student at UC Berkeley. At that time, anti herbivore defense was presumed to be the sole adaptive value for plants to make tannins, despite little evidence that they are effective. Convoluted theories were created to explain why plant communities on highly infertile, acidic soils produced so much more tannin than plants on better soil, as somehow consistent with anti herbivore defense. At that time, nobody considered how tannin production could benefit the plants that produce them through their impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling. Tannins slow the decomposition of plant or soil organic matter they come into contact with. Tannins themselves are the substrate from which most soil humic acids are formed, having centuries long mean residence time in soil. It is highly gratifying to see this finally reach the point where the application to address climate change is being so explicitly identified in the title of a new paper. The most relevant posts of this thread are all compiled, beginning about 1/3 way down page 22 |
| 05-04-2025 13:52 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
February 23, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out 5 days ago: Lili Dong et al. 2025. Time-varying associations between absorptive fine roots and leaf litter decomposition across 23 plant species. Soil Biology and Biochemistry Volume 204 109751 gets into how accumulated recalcitrant compounds influence decomposition process. Highly relevant for carbon sequestration in GRASSLANDS, as they compared leaf litter and fine root litter decomposition in 23 different grass species. --------------------------------------- February 9, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out a few days ago: Bhupinder Singh Jatana. 2025. Short term mineralization dynamics of meat and bone meal as impacted by different natural amendments. Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, (published online February 2, 2025) The basic idea is to add tannin-rich (i.e. polyphenol-rich) vegetable matter to "hot" compost materials such as meat and bone meal. The tannins slow the decomposition to minimize loss of nitrogen, etc, from the material, transforming it into "cool" compost - slow release fertilizer. The role of polyphenols as regulators of nitrogen cycling certainly has implications for evolutionary biology. But it has gotten far more attention from agronomists and foresters for its practical applications. -------------------------------- February 6, 2025 - new paper came out eight days ago citing sealover. Zhenglin Zhang et al. 2025. Introduction of a Fallow Year to Continuous Rice Systems Enhances Crop Soil Nitrogen Uptake. European Journal of Soil Science, 2025: 76e70046 It makes me happy to see that the knowledge acquired in my published scientific research is being applied to enhance soil nitrogen crop uptake in rice. Not that I discovered "fallowing", just the role of polyphenols in nitrogen cycling. January 25, 2025 New one cites "sealover" 1995 pub in NATURE Plants as our teachers: Long-term Responses of Dwarf Shrub and Bryophyte Communities to Nutrient Addition in a Northern Swedish Island System. By Agnes Blomgren, this is actually a master's thesis just published at Umea University, Sweden. Like the pygmy forest where I did polyphenol research, dwarf shrubs and bryophytes grow on these Swedish Islands in places where the soil is virtually devoid of nutrients to support plant growth. Not a ground breaking new paper directly relevant to climate change, but it is fun to know that master's degree students are still reading my work and citing it as the basis for something in their own research. ---- January 8, 2025 Two new thread-related papers citing "sealover" came out 5 days ago: M. Ishfaq et al. 2025. Nitrogen phosphorus trade-offs in mangroves. Plant and Soil complete citation to follow. "sealover" just loves to see his name on a paper about those mangroves. It includes a BEAUTIFUL graphic cross section of the ecosystem and fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, etc. also came out 5 days ago: P. Yang et al. 2025. Heating-Induced Redox Property Dynamics of Peat Soil Dissolved Organic Matter in a Simulated Peat Fire: Electron Exchange Capacity and Molecular Characteristics. Biogeochemical Cycling complete citation to follow Love the title of that journal - Biogeochemical Cycling. And it is about PEAT in coastal wetlands. sealover is happy to see his name attached... take THAT you meanie troll bullies! SOMEBODY thinks i'm a for real science guy. Check out the first sentences of the abstract: "Peatlands store one-third of the world's soil organic carbon. Globally increased fires altered peat soil organic matter chemistry.." Because climate change has dramatically increased the frequency and severity of PEAT FIRES. Did they say "organic carbon"? It figures, since the journal is called "Biogeochemical Cycling", something that doesn't even exist. It's hard enough to keep the peat waterlogged enough that it doesn't just decompose and disappear as land surface elevation sinks. It also gets torched more than ever before, and it puts a lot of toxic partially burned organic matter into soluble state to contaminate water supplies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This new paper came out 24 days ago (November, 2024). It actually cites my FIRST paper published about polyphenols. "Intraspecific variation of conifer phenolic concentration on a marine terrace soil acidity gradient...", published in Plant and Soil, volume 171, pages 255-262, in 1995. This newest paper, just out a few weeks ago, is: M. Gabriela Mattera, et al. 2024. Intraspecific variation in leaf (poly)phenolic content of a southern hemisphere beech (Nothofagus antarctica) growing under different environmental conditions. Nature, Scientific Reports (2024) 14:20050. Investigation of intraspecific variation of polyphenol (aka tannin) content in tree leaves as a response to different environmental conditions is something I kind of pioneered in 1995. Soil properties are a very important environmental condition influencing how much polyphenol a plant will need to make in order to be competitive. Beech trees growing on acidic, silica-rich soils produce higher concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form decomposition-resistant leaf litter that accumulates above the mineral soil surface. (mor type humus) Beech trees growing on near-neutral pH, calcareous soils produce lower concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form easily-decomposed leaf litter that is rapidly incorporated into the mineral soil. (mull type humus) The capacity of trees to regulate decomposition and accumulation of soil organic matter through alteration of their polyphenol content is of GREAT SIGNIFICANCE for efforts to mitigate climate change. One goal of the research in this most recent paper (Mattera et al) was to "..also provide some clues about the performance of N. antarctica under future climate scenarios." Climate change has harmful feedbacks on plant chemistry. It is hoped that conscious management of plant chemistry could have eventually have beneficial feedbacks on climate change. To maximize carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. ------------------------------- The global environmental crisis will certainly get worse before it gets better. If it ever does get better. I am grateful to have lived long enough to see the new scientific paper that came out this April (2024), cited below. I am grateful that the knowledge I helped to discover about carbon and nitrogen cycling is being applied in the newest research, to help humanity address climate change. The very first post of this thread gives a broad background on the role of tannins in carbon sequestration and mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions. This paper was published April 10, 2024 B. Adamczyk. 2024. Tannins and climate change: Are tannins able to stabilize carbon in the soil? Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Volume 72, Issue 16, pages 8928-8932. This paper cites my tannin investigations and is highly relevant to the topic of carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. The author and I are quite familiar with each other's research. It was 35 years ago when I first became fully immersed in tannin (also known as polyphenol) research as a grad student at UC Berkeley. At that time, anti herbivore defense was presumed to be the sole adaptive value for plants to make tannins, despite little evidence that they are effective. Convoluted theories were created to explain why plant communities on highly infertile, acidic soils produced so much more tannin than plants on better soil, as somehow consistent with anti herbivore defense. At that time, nobody considered how tannin production could benefit the plants that produce them through their impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling. Tannins slow the decomposition of plant or soil organic matter they come into contact with. Tannins themselves are the substrate from which most soil humic acids are formed, having centuries long mean residence time in soil. It is highly gratifying to see this finally reach the point where the application to address climate change is being so explicitly identified in the title of a new paper. The most relevant posts of this thread are all compiled, beginning about 1/3 way down page 22 |
| 07-04-2025 19:35 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
If the only approach employed by humans to address climate change is the reduction of fossil fuel combustion, it is doomed to fail. First, it will fail because it will never happen. Short of a humanity extinction event, there is no realistic way to get everyone to stop using the stuff. Second, it will fail because even if it happens, it won't be enough. There are too many other new sources of greenhouse gas entering the atmosphere. Climate change itself is causing the Earth to increase its natural emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. The warming of the tundra. The increased frequency and severity of wildfires. The loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere as ecosystems dry out. The decreased capacity of coral reefs to act as a carbon "sink". Human activity other than fossil fuel combustion results in carbon dioxide emissions that rival those from fossil fuel. Poor land management provoking loss of soil organic matter to be released as carbon dioxide. Drainage of wetlands for agriculture, exposing the enormous reservoir of organic carbon to oxidation and emission of carbon dioxide. The list goes on of all the things we do beyond fossil fuel to cause more greenhouse gases to warm the planet. So, the only real hope is to somehow significantly increase the amount of carbon dioxide that gets sequestered from the atmosphere. Some are inventing technological devices to try to do this. Others are attempting to enable natural ecosystems to sequester more carbon dioxide. In theory, if we provided enough bioavailable iron to the sea, it would act as fertilizer for a whole lot more marine photosynthesis to sequester CO2. Natural ecosystems are often very good at sequestering carbon dioxide. Allowing those natural ecosystems to remain intact, or even restoring them where we have already caused damage, could help a lot to offset the carbon dioxide contribution of fossil fuel combustion. This thread is about how natural ecosystems use polyphenols to regulate the carbon cycle and maximize sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide into stable soil organic matter with a very long residence time. Peasant agricultural science discovered thousands of years ago how to mimic the nutrient cycling dynamics of natural ecosystems in our food production. Biogeochemists are rediscovering these ancient agroforestry land management practices as a model for deliberate preservation and enhancement of soil organic carbon. February 23, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out 5 days ago: Lili Dong et al. 2025. Time-varying associations between absorptive fine roots and leaf litter decomposition across 23 plant species. Soil Biology and Biochemistry Volume 204 109751 gets into how accumulated recalcitrant compounds influence decomposition process. Highly relevant for carbon sequestration in GRASSLANDS, as they compared leaf litter and fine root litter decomposition in 23 different grass species. --------------------------------------- February 9, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out a few days ago: Bhupinder Singh Jatana. 2025. Short term mineralization dynamics of meat and bone meal as impacted by different natural amendments. Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, (published online February 2, 2025) The basic idea is to add tannin-rich (i.e. polyphenol-rich) vegetable matter to "hot" compost materials such as meat and bone meal. The tannins slow the decomposition to minimize loss of nitrogen, etc, from the material, transforming it into "cool" compost - slow release fertilizer. The role of polyphenols as regulators of nitrogen cycling certainly has implications for evolutionary biology. But it has gotten far more attention from agronomists and foresters for its practical applications. -------------------------------- February 6, 2025 - new paper came out eight days ago citing sealover. Zhenglin Zhang et al. 2025. Introduction of a Fallow Year to Continuous Rice Systems Enhances Crop Soil Nitrogen Uptake. European Journal of Soil Science, 2025: 76e70046 It makes me happy to see that the knowledge acquired in my published scientific research is being applied to enhance soil nitrogen crop uptake in rice. Not that I discovered "fallowing", just the role of polyphenols in nitrogen cycling. January 25, 2025 New one cites "sealover" 1995 pub in NATURE Plants as our teachers: Long-term Responses of Dwarf Shrub and Bryophyte Communities to Nutrient Addition in a Northern Swedish Island System. By Agnes Blomgren, this is actually a master's thesis just published at Umea University, Sweden. Like the pygmy forest where I did polyphenol research, dwarf shrubs and bryophytes grow on these Swedish Islands in places where the soil is virtually devoid of nutrients to support plant growth. Not a ground breaking new paper directly relevant to climate change, but it is fun to know that master's degree students are still reading my work and citing it as the basis for something in their own research. ---- January 8, 2025 Two new thread-related papers citing "sealover" came out 5 days ago: M. Ishfaq et al. 2025. Nitrogen phosphorus trade-offs in mangroves. Plant and Soil complete citation to follow. "sealover" just loves to see his name on a paper about those mangroves. It includes a BEAUTIFUL graphic cross section of the ecosystem and fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, etc. also came out 5 days ago: P. Yang et al. 2025. Heating-Induced Redox Property Dynamics of Peat Soil Dissolved Organic Matter in a Simulated Peat Fire: Electron Exchange Capacity and Molecular Characteristics. Biogeochemical Cycling complete citation to follow Love the title of that journal - Biogeochemical Cycling. And it is about PEAT in coastal wetlands. sealover is happy to see his name attached... take THAT you meanie troll bullies! SOMEBODY thinks i'm a for real science guy. Check out the first sentences of the abstract: "Peatlands store one-third of the world's soil organic carbon. Globally increased fires altered peat soil organic matter chemistry.." Because climate change has dramatically increased the frequency and severity of PEAT FIRES. Did they say "organic carbon"? It figures, since the journal is called "Biogeochemical Cycling", something that doesn't even exist. It's hard enough to keep the peat waterlogged enough that it doesn't just decompose and disappear as land surface elevation sinks. It also gets torched more than ever before, and it puts a lot of toxic partially burned organic matter into soluble state to contaminate water supplies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This new paper came out 24 days ago (November, 2024). It actually cites my FIRST paper published about polyphenols. "Intraspecific variation of conifer phenolic concentration on a marine terrace soil acidity gradient...", published in Plant and Soil, volume 171, pages 255-262, in 1995. This newest paper, just out a few weeks ago, is: M. Gabriela Mattera, et al. 2024. Intraspecific variation in leaf (poly)phenolic content of a southern hemisphere beech (Nothofagus antarctica) growing under different environmental conditions. Nature, Scientific Reports (2024) 14:20050. Investigation of intraspecific variation of polyphenol (aka tannin) content in tree leaves as a response to different environmental conditions is something I kind of pioneered in 1995. Soil properties are a very important environmental condition influencing how much polyphenol a plant will need to make in order to be competitive. Beech trees growing on acidic, silica-rich soils produce higher concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form decomposition-resistant leaf litter that accumulates above the mineral soil surface. (mor type humus) Beech trees growing on near-neutral pH, calcareous soils produce lower concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form easily-decomposed leaf litter that is rapidly incorporated into the mineral soil. (mull type humus) The capacity of trees to regulate decomposition and accumulation of soil organic matter through alteration of their polyphenol content is of GREAT SIGNIFICANCE for efforts to mitigate climate change. One goal of the research in this most recent paper (Mattera et al) was to "..also provide some clues about the performance of N. antarctica under future climate scenarios." Climate change has harmful feedbacks on plant chemistry. It is hoped that conscious management of plant chemistry could have eventually have beneficial feedbacks on climate change. To maximize carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. ------------------------------- The global environmental crisis will certainly get worse before it gets better. If it ever does get better. I am grateful to have lived long enough to see the new scientific paper that came out this April (2024), cited below. I am grateful that the knowledge I helped to discover about carbon and nitrogen cycling is being applied in the newest research, to help humanity address climate change. The very first post of this thread gives a broad background on the role of tannins in carbon sequestration and mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions. This paper was published April 10, 2024 B. Adamczyk. 2024. Tannins and climate change: Are tannins able to stabilize carbon in the soil? Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Volume 72, Issue 16, pages 8928-8932. This paper cites my tannin investigations and is highly relevant to the topic of carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. The author and I are quite familiar with each other's research. It was 35 years ago when I first became fully immersed in tannin (also known as polyphenol) research as a grad student at UC Berkeley. At that time, anti herbivore defense was presumed to be the sole adaptive value for plants to make tannins, despite little evidence that they are effective. Convoluted theories were created to explain why plant communities on highly infertile, acidic soils produced so much more tannin than plants on better soil, as somehow consistent with anti herbivore defense. At that time, nobody considered how tannin production could benefit the plants that produce them through their impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling. Tannins slow the decomposition of plant or soil organic matter they come into contact with. Tannins themselves are the substrate from which most soil humic acids are formed, having centuries long mean residence time in soil. It is highly gratifying to see this finally reach the point where the application to address climate change is being so explicitly identified in the title of a new paper. The most relevant posts of this thread are all compiled, beginning about 1/3 way down page 22 |
| 07-04-2025 20:50 | |
Into the Night ★★★★★(23051) |
Im a BM wrote: Climate cannot change. Fossils aren't used as fuel. Im a BM wrote: Fossils aren't used as fuel. Im a BM wrote: No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth. You are still ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics. You cannot create energy out of nothing. Im a BM wrote: Climate cannot change. The tundra warms every summer. Arson is the cause of increased wildfires in the SDTC. The SDTC has no tundra. Carbon is not water. Carbon is not a sink. Im a BM wrote: Fossils aren't used as fuel. Carbon dioxide is not organic. Carbon is not organic. No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth. You cannot create energy out of nothing. You are still ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics. Im a BM wrote: Carbon dioxide is not a problem. It is an absolutely essential naturally occurring gas. The Parrot Killer Debunked in my sig. - tmiddles Google keeps track of paranoid talk and i'm not on their list. I've been evaluated and certified. - keepit nuclear powered ships do not require nuclear fuel. - Swan While it is true that fossils do not burn it is also true that fossil fuels burn very well - Swan |
| 07-04-2025 22:56 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
"Carbon is not water." The unmatched scientific genius of Into the Night. Who else would be so well versed in chemistry that they are aware that carbon is NOT water? It is fortunate that we have a REAL "chemist" here to correct my glaring errors. "You are not an expert. You are a quack. You are a nothing." "You are describing yourself. I couldn't have said it better myself. Into the Night wrote:Im a BM wrote: |
| 10-04-2025 00:14 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
If the only approach employed by humans to address climate change is the reduction of fossil fuel combustion, it is doomed to fail. First, it will fail because it will never happen. Short of a humanity extinction event, there is no realistic way to get everyone to stop using the stuff. Second, it will fail because even if it happens, it won't be enough. There are too many other new sources of greenhouse gas entering the atmosphere. Climate change itself is causing the Earth to increase its natural emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. The warming of the tundra. The increased frequency and severity of wildfires. The loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere as ecosystems dry out. The decreased capacity of coral reefs to act as a carbon "sink". Human activity other than fossil fuel combustion results in carbon dioxide emissions that rival those from fossil fuel. Poor land management provoking loss of soil organic matter to be released as carbon dioxide. Drainage of wetlands for agriculture, exposing the enormous reservoir of organic carbon to oxidation and emission of carbon dioxide. The list goes on of all the things we do beyond fossil fuel to cause more greenhouse gases to warm the planet. So, the only real hope is to somehow significantly increase the amount of carbon dioxide that gets sequestered from the atmosphere. Some are inventing technological devices to try to do this. Others are attempting to enable natural ecosystems to sequester more carbon dioxide. In theory, if we provided enough bioavailable iron to the sea, it would act as fertilizer for a whole lot more marine photosynthesis to sequester CO2. Natural ecosystems are often very good at sequestering carbon dioxide. Allowing those natural ecosystems to remain intact, or even restoring them where we have already caused damage, could help a lot to offset the carbon dioxide contribution of fossil fuel combustion. This thread is about how natural ecosystems use polyphenols to regulate the carbon cycle and maximize sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide into stable soil organic matter with a very long residence time. Peasant agricultural science discovered thousands of years ago how to mimic the nutrient cycling dynamics of natural ecosystems in our food production. Biogeochemists are rediscovering these ancient agroforestry land management practices as a model for deliberate preservation and enhancement of soil organic carbon. February 23, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out 5 days ago: Lili Dong et al. 2025. Time-varying associations between absorptive fine roots and leaf litter decomposition across 23 plant species. Soil Biology and Biochemistry Volume 204 109751 gets into how accumulated recalcitrant compounds influence decomposition process. Highly relevant for carbon sequestration in GRASSLANDS, as they compared leaf litter and fine root litter decomposition in 23 different grass species. --------------------------------------- February 9, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out a few days ago: Bhupinder Singh Jatana. 2025. Short term mineralization dynamics of meat and bone meal as impacted by different natural amendments. Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, (published online February 2, 2025) The basic idea is to add tannin-rich (i.e. polyphenol-rich) vegetable matter to "hot" compost materials such as meat and bone meal. The tannins slow the decomposition to minimize loss of nitrogen, etc, from the material, transforming it into "cool" compost - slow release fertilizer. The role of polyphenols as regulators of nitrogen cycling certainly has implications for evolutionary biology. But it has gotten far more attention from agronomists and foresters for its practical applications. -------------------------------- February 6, 2025 - new paper came out eight days ago citing sealover. Zhenglin Zhang et al. 2025. Introduction of a Fallow Year to Continuous Rice Systems Enhances Crop Soil Nitrogen Uptake. European Journal of Soil Science, 2025: 76e70046 It makes me happy to see that the knowledge acquired in my published scientific research is being applied to enhance soil nitrogen crop uptake in rice. Not that I discovered "fallowing", just the role of polyphenols in nitrogen cycling. January 25, 2025 New one cites "sealover" 1995 pub in NATURE Plants as our teachers: Long-term Responses of Dwarf Shrub and Bryophyte Communities to Nutrient Addition in a Northern Swedish Island System. By Agnes Blomgren, this is actually a master's thesis just published at Umea University, Sweden. Like the pygmy forest where I did polyphenol research, dwarf shrubs and bryophytes grow on these Swedish Islands in places where the soil is virtually devoid of nutrients to support plant growth. Not a ground breaking new paper directly relevant to climate change, but it is fun to know that master's degree students are still reading my work and citing it as the basis for something in their own research. ---- January 8, 2025 Two new thread-related papers citing "sealover" came out 5 days ago: M. Ishfaq et al. 2025. Nitrogen phosphorus trade-offs in mangroves. Plant and Soil complete citation to follow. "sealover" just loves to see his name on a paper about those mangroves. It includes a BEAUTIFUL graphic cross section of the ecosystem and fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, etc. also came out 5 days ago: P. Yang et al. 2025. Heating-Induced Redox Property Dynamics of Peat Soil Dissolved Organic Matter in a Simulated Peat Fire: Electron Exchange Capacity and Molecular Characteristics. Biogeochemical Cycling complete citation to follow Love the title of that journal - Biogeochemical Cycling. And it is about PEAT in coastal wetlands. sealover is happy to see his name attached... take THAT you meanie troll bullies! SOMEBODY thinks i'm a for real science guy. Check out the first sentences of the abstract: "Peatlands store one-third of the world's soil organic carbon. Globally increased fires altered peat soil organic matter chemistry.." Because climate change has dramatically increased the frequency and severity of PEAT FIRES. Did they say "organic carbon"? It figures, since the journal is called "Biogeochemical Cycling", something that doesn't even exist. It's hard enough to keep the peat waterlogged enough that it doesn't just decompose and disappear as land surface elevation sinks. It also gets torched more than ever before, and it puts a lot of toxic partially burned organic matter into soluble state to contaminate water supplies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This new paper came out 24 days ago (November, 2024). It actually cites my FIRST paper published about polyphenols. "Intraspecific variation of conifer phenolic concentration on a marine terrace soil acidity gradient...", published in Plant and Soil, volume 171, pages 255-262, in 1995. This newest paper, just out a few weeks ago, is: M. Gabriela Mattera, et al. 2024. Intraspecific variation in leaf (poly)phenolic content of a southern hemisphere beech (Nothofagus antarctica) growing under different environmental conditions. Nature, Scientific Reports (2024) 14:20050. Investigation of intraspecific variation of polyphenol (aka tannin) content in tree leaves as a response to different environmental conditions is something I kind of pioneered in 1995. Soil properties are a very important environmental condition influencing how much polyphenol a plant will need to make in order to be competitive. Beech trees growing on acidic, silica-rich soils produce higher concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form decomposition-resistant leaf litter that accumulates above the mineral soil surface. (mor type humus) Beech trees growing on near-neutral pH, calcareous soils produce lower concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form easily-decomposed leaf litter that is rapidly incorporated into the mineral soil. (mull type humus) The capacity of trees to regulate decomposition and accumulation of soil organic matter through alteration of their polyphenol content is of GREAT SIGNIFICANCE for efforts to mitigate climate change. One goal of the research in this most recent paper (Mattera et al) was to "..also provide some clues about the performance of N. antarctica under future climate scenarios." Climate change has harmful feedbacks on plant chemistry. It is hoped that conscious management of plant chemistry could have eventually have beneficial feedbacks on climate change. To maximize carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. ------------------------------- The global environmental crisis will certainly get worse before it gets better. If it ever does get better. I am grateful to have lived long enough to see the new scientific paper that came out this April (2024), cited below. I am grateful that the knowledge I helped to discover about carbon and nitrogen cycling is being applied in the newest research, to help humanity address climate change. The very first post of this thread gives a broad background on the role of tannins in carbon sequestration and mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions. This paper was published April 10, 2024 B. Adamczyk. 2024. Tannins and climate change: Are tannins able to stabilize carbon in the soil? Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Volume 72, Issue 16, pages 8928-8932. This paper cites my tannin investigations and is highly relevant to the topic of carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. The author and I are quite familiar with each other's research. It was 35 years ago when I first became fully immersed in tannin (also known as polyphenol) research as a grad student at UC Berkeley. At that time, anti herbivore defense was presumed to be the sole adaptive value for plants to make tannins, despite little evidence that they are effective. Convoluted theories were created to explain why plant communities on highly infertile, acidic soils produced so much more tannin than plants on better soil, as somehow consistent with anti herbivore defense. At that time, nobody considered how tannin production could benefit the plants that produce them through their impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling. Tannins slow the decomposition of plant or soil organic matter they come into contact with. Tannins themselves are the substrate from which most soil humic acids are formed, having centuries long mean residence time in soil. It is highly gratifying to see this finally reach the point where the application to address climate change is being so explicitly identified in the title of a new paper. The most relevant posts of this thread are all compiled, beginning about 1/3 way down page 22 |
| 10-04-2025 06:14 | |
| Into the Night★★★★★ (23051) |
Im a BM wrote: Climate cannot change. Stop spamming. The Parrot Killer Debunked in my sig. - tmiddles Google keeps track of paranoid talk and i'm not on their list. I've been evaluated and certified. - keepit nuclear powered ships do not require nuclear fuel. - Swan While it is true that fossils do not burn it is also true that fossil fuels burn very well - Swan |
| 10-04-2025 18:48 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
If the only approach employed by humans to address climate change is the reduction of fossil fuel combustion, it is doomed to fail. First, it will fail because it will never happen. Short of a humanity extinction event, there is no realistic way to get everyone to stop using the stuff. Second, it will fail because even if it happens, it won't be enough. There are too many other new sources of greenhouse gas entering the atmosphere. Climate change itself is causing the Earth to increase its natural emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. The warming of the tundra. The increased frequency and severity of wildfires. The loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere as ecosystems dry out. The decreased capacity of coral reefs to act as a carbon "sink". Human activity other than fossil fuel combustion results in carbon dioxide emissions that rival those from fossil fuel. Poor land management provoking loss of soil organic matter to be released as carbon dioxide. Drainage of wetlands for agriculture, exposing the enormous reservoir of organic carbon to oxidation and emission of carbon dioxide. The list goes on of all the things we do beyond fossil fuel to cause more greenhouse gases to warm the planet. So, the only real hope is to somehow significantly increase the amount of carbon dioxide that gets sequestered from the atmosphere. Some are inventing technological devices to try to do this. Others are attempting to enable natural ecosystems to sequester more carbon dioxide. In theory, if we provided enough bioavailable iron to the sea, it would act as fertilizer for a whole lot more marine photosynthesis to sequester CO2. Natural ecosystems are often very good at sequestering carbon dioxide. Allowing those natural ecosystems to remain intact, or even restoring them where we have already caused damage, could help a lot to offset the carbon dioxide contribution of fossil fuel combustion. This thread is about how natural ecosystems use polyphenols to regulate the carbon cycle and maximize sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide into stable soil organic matter with a very long residence time. Peasant agricultural science discovered thousands of years ago how to mimic the nutrient cycling dynamics of natural ecosystems in our food production. Biogeochemists are rediscovering these ancient agroforestry land management practices as a model for deliberate preservation and enhancement of soil organic carbon. February 23, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out 5 days ago: Lili Dong et al. 2025. Time-varying associations between absorptive fine roots and leaf litter decomposition across 23 plant species. Soil Biology and Biochemistry Volume 204 109751 gets into how accumulated recalcitrant compounds influence decomposition process. Highly relevant for carbon sequestration in GRASSLANDS, as they compared leaf litter and fine root litter decomposition in 23 different grass species. --------------------------------------- February 9, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out a few days ago: Bhupinder Singh Jatana. 2025. Short term mineralization dynamics of meat and bone meal as impacted by different natural amendments. Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, (published online February 2, 2025) The basic idea is to add tannin-rich (i.e. polyphenol-rich) vegetable matter to "hot" compost materials such as meat and bone meal. The tannins slow the decomposition to minimize loss of nitrogen, etc, from the material, transforming it into "cool" compost - slow release fertilizer. The role of polyphenols as regulators of nitrogen cycling certainly has implications for evolutionary biology. But it has gotten far more attention from agronomists and foresters for its practical applications. -------------------------------- February 6, 2025 - new paper came out eight days ago citing sealover. Zhenglin Zhang et al. 2025. Introduction of a Fallow Year to Continuous Rice Systems Enhances Crop Soil Nitrogen Uptake. European Journal of Soil Science, 2025: 76e70046 It makes me happy to see that the knowledge acquired in my published scientific research is being applied to enhance soil nitrogen crop uptake in rice. Not that I discovered "fallowing", just the role of polyphenols in nitrogen cycling. January 25, 2025 New one cites "sealover" 1995 pub in NATURE Plants as our teachers: Long-term Responses of Dwarf Shrub and Bryophyte Communities to Nutrient Addition in a Northern Swedish Island System. By Agnes Blomgren, this is actually a master's thesis just published at Umea University, Sweden. Like the pygmy forest where I did polyphenol research, dwarf shrubs and bryophytes grow on these Swedish Islands in places where the soil is virtually devoid of nutrients to support plant growth. Not a ground breaking new paper directly relevant to climate change, but it is fun to know that master's degree students are still reading my work and citing it as the basis for something in their own research. ---- January 8, 2025 Two new thread-related papers citing "sealover" came out 5 days ago: M. Ishfaq et al. 2025. Nitrogen phosphorus trade-offs in mangroves. Plant and Soil complete citation to follow. "sealover" just loves to see his name on a paper about those mangroves. It includes a BEAUTIFUL graphic cross section of the ecosystem and fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, etc. also came out 5 days ago: P. Yang et al. 2025. Heating-Induced Redox Property Dynamics of Peat Soil Dissolved Organic Matter in a Simulated Peat Fire: Electron Exchange Capacity and Molecular Characteristics. Biogeochemical Cycling complete citation to follow Love the title of that journal - Biogeochemical Cycling. And it is about PEAT in coastal wetlands. sealover is happy to see his name attached... take THAT you meanie troll bullies! SOMEBODY thinks i'm a for real science guy. Check out the first sentences of the abstract: "Peatlands store one-third of the world's soil organic carbon. Globally increased fires altered peat soil organic matter chemistry.." Because climate change has dramatically increased the frequency and severity of PEAT FIRES. Did they say "organic carbon"? It figures, since the journal is called "Biogeochemical Cycling", something that doesn't even exist. It's hard enough to keep the peat waterlogged enough that it doesn't just decompose and disappear as land surface elevation sinks. It also gets torched more than ever before, and it puts a lot of toxic partially burned organic matter into soluble state to contaminate water supplies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This new paper came out 24 days ago (November, 2024). It actually cites my FIRST paper published about polyphenols. "Intraspecific variation of conifer phenolic concentration on a marine terrace soil acidity gradient...", published in Plant and Soil, volume 171, pages 255-262, in 1995. This newest paper, just out a few weeks ago, is: M. Gabriela Mattera, et al. 2024. Intraspecific variation in leaf (poly)phenolic content of a southern hemisphere beech (Nothofagus antarctica) growing under different environmental conditions. Nature, Scientific Reports (2024) 14:20050. Investigation of intraspecific variation of polyphenol (aka tannin) content in tree leaves as a response to different environmental conditions is something I kind of pioneered in 1995. Soil properties are a very important environmental condition influencing how much polyphenol a plant will need to make in order to be competitive. Beech trees growing on acidic, silica-rich soils produce higher concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form decomposition-resistant leaf litter that accumulates above the mineral soil surface. (mor type humus) Beech trees growing on near-neutral pH, calcareous soils produce lower concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form easily-decomposed leaf litter that is rapidly incorporated into the mineral soil. (mull type humus) The capacity of trees to regulate decomposition and accumulation of soil organic matter through alteration of their polyphenol content is of GREAT SIGNIFICANCE for efforts to mitigate climate change. One goal of the research in this most recent paper (Mattera et al) was to "..also provide some clues about the performance of N. antarctica under future climate scenarios." Climate change has harmful feedbacks on plant chemistry. It is hoped that conscious management of plant chemistry could have eventually have beneficial feedbacks on climate change. To maximize carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. ------------------------------- The global environmental crisis will certainly get worse before it gets better. If it ever does get better. I am grateful to have lived long enough to see the new scientific paper that came out this April (2024), cited below. I am grateful that the knowledge I helped to discover about carbon and nitrogen cycling is being applied in the newest research, to help humanity address climate change. The very first post of this thread gives a broad background on the role of tannins in carbon sequestration and mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions. This paper was published April 10, 2024 B. Adamczyk. 2024. Tannins and climate change: Are tannins able to stabilize carbon in the soil? Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Volume 72, Issue 16, pages 8928-8932. This paper cites my tannin investigations and is highly relevant to the topic of carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. The author and I are quite familiar with each other's research. It was 35 years ago when I first became fully immersed in tannin (also known as polyphenol) research as a grad student at UC Berkeley. At that time, anti herbivore defense was presumed to be the sole adaptive value for plants to make tannins, despite little evidence that they are effective. Convoluted theories were created to explain why plant communities on highly infertile, acidic soils produced so much more tannin than plants on better soil, as somehow consistent with anti herbivore defense. At that time, nobody considered how tannin production could benefit the plants that produce them through their impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling. Tannins slow the decomposition of plant or soil organic matter they come into contact with. Tannins themselves are the substrate from which most soil humic acids are formed, having centuries long mean residence time in soil. It is highly gratifying to see this finally reach the point where the application to address climate change is being so explicitly identified in the title of a new paper. The most relevant posts of this thread are all compiled, beginning about 1/3 way down page 22 |
| 11-04-2025 10:04 | |
| Into the Night★★★★★ (23051) |
Im a BM wrote: Climate cannot change. Fossils aren't used as fuel. Stop spamming. The Parrot Killer Debunked in my sig. - tmiddles Google keeps track of paranoid talk and i'm not on their list. I've been evaluated and certified. - keepit nuclear powered ships do not require nuclear fuel. - Swan While it is true that fossils do not burn it is also true that fossil fuels burn very well - Swan |
| RE: Full Focus on Fossil Fuel Fails14-04-2025 03:25 | |
| Im a BM★★★★★ (2282) |
Full Focus on Fossil Fuel Fails If the only approach employed by humans to address climate change is the reduction of fossil fuel combustion, it is doomed to fail. First, it will fail because it will never happen. Short of a humanity extinction event, there is no realistic way to get everyone to stop using the stuff. Second, it will fail because even if it happens, it won't be enough. There are too many other new sources of greenhouse gas entering the atmosphere. Climate change itself is causing the Earth to increase its natural emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. The warming of the tundra. The increased frequency and severity of wildfires. The loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere as ecosystems dry out. The decreased capacity of coral reefs to act as a carbon "sink". Human activity other than fossil fuel combustion results in carbon dioxide emissions that rival those from fossil fuel. Poor land management provoking loss of soil organic matter to be released as carbon dioxide. Drainage of wetlands for agriculture, exposing the enormous reservoir of organic carbon to oxidation and emission of carbon dioxide. The list goes on of all the things we do beyond fossil fuel to cause more greenhouse gases to warm the planet. So, the only real hope is to somehow significantly increase the amount of carbon dioxide that gets sequestered from the atmosphere. Some are inventing technological devices to try to do this. Others are attempting to enable natural ecosystems to sequester more carbon dioxide. In theory, if we provided enough bioavailable iron to the sea, it would act as fertilizer for a whole lot more marine photosynthesis to sequester CO2. Natural ecosystems are often very good at sequestering carbon dioxide. Allowing those natural ecosystems to remain intact, or even restoring them where we have already caused damage, could help a lot to offset the carbon dioxide contribution of fossil fuel combustion. This thread is about how natural ecosystems use polyphenols to regulate the carbon cycle and maximize sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide into stable soil organic matter with a very long residence time. Peasant agricultural science discovered thousands of years ago how to mimic the nutrient cycling dynamics of natural ecosystems in our food production. Biogeochemists are rediscovering these ancient agroforestry land management practices as a model for deliberate preservation and enhancement of soil organic carbon. February 23, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out 5 days ago: Lili Dong et al. 2025. Time-varying associations between absorptive fine roots and leaf litter decomposition across 23 plant species. Soil Biology and Biochemistry Volume 204 109751 gets into how accumulated recalcitrant compounds influence decomposition process. Highly relevant for carbon sequestration in GRASSLANDS, as they compared leaf litter and fine root litter decomposition in 23 different grass species. --------------------------------------- February 9, 2025 - New paper citing @sealover came out a few days ago: Bhupinder Singh Jatana. 2025. Short term mineralization dynamics of meat and bone meal as impacted by different natural amendments. Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, (published online February 2, 2025) The basic idea is to add tannin-rich (i.e. polyphenol-rich) vegetable matter to "hot" compost materials such as meat and bone meal. The tannins slow the decomposition to minimize loss of nitrogen, etc, from the material, transforming it into "cool" compost - slow release fertilizer. The role of polyphenols as regulators of nitrogen cycling certainly has implications for evolutionary biology. But it has gotten far more attention from agronomists and foresters for its practical applications. -------------------------------- February 6, 2025 - new paper came out eight days ago citing sealover. Zhenglin Zhang et al. 2025. Introduction of a Fallow Year to Continuous Rice Systems Enhances Crop Soil Nitrogen Uptake. European Journal of Soil Science, 2025: 76e70046 It makes me happy to see that the knowledge acquired in my published scientific research is being applied to enhance soil nitrogen crop uptake in rice. Not that I discovered "fallowing", just the role of polyphenols in nitrogen cycling. January 25, 2025 New one cites "sealover" 1995 pub in NATURE Plants as our teachers: Long-term Responses of Dwarf Shrub and Bryophyte Communities to Nutrient Addition in a Northern Swedish Island System. By Agnes Blomgren, this is actually a master's thesis just published at Umea University, Sweden. Like the pygmy forest where I did polyphenol research, dwarf shrubs and bryophytes grow on these Swedish Islands in places where the soil is virtually devoid of nutrients to support plant growth. Not a ground breaking new paper directly relevant to climate change, but it is fun to know that master's degree students are still reading my work and citing it as the basis for something in their own research. ---- January 8, 2025 Two new thread-related papers citing "sealover" came out 5 days ago: M. Ishfaq et al. 2025. Nitrogen phosphorus trade-offs in mangroves. Plant and Soil complete citation to follow. "sealover" just loves to see his name on a paper about those mangroves. It includes a BEAUTIFUL graphic cross section of the ecosystem and fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, etc. also came out 5 days ago: P. Yang et al. 2025. Heating-Induced Redox Property Dynamics of Peat Soil Dissolved Organic Matter in a Simulated Peat Fire: Electron Exchange Capacity and Molecular Characteristics. Biogeochemical Cycling complete citation to follow Love the title of that journal - Biogeochemical Cycling. And it is about PEAT in coastal wetlands. sealover is happy to see his name attached... take THAT you meanie troll bullies! SOMEBODY thinks i'm a for real science guy. Check out the first sentences of the abstract: "Peatlands store one-third of the world's soil organic carbon. Globally increased fires altered peat soil organic matter chemistry.." Because climate change has dramatically increased the frequency and severity of PEAT FIRES. Did they say "organic carbon"? It figures, since the journal is called "Biogeochemical Cycling", something that doesn't even exist. It's hard enough to keep the peat waterlogged enough that it doesn't just decompose and disappear as land surface elevation sinks. It also gets torched more than ever before, and it puts a lot of toxic partially burned organic matter into soluble state to contaminate water supplies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This new paper came out 24 days ago (November, 2024). It actually cites my FIRST paper published about polyphenols. "Intraspecific variation of conifer phenolic concentration on a marine terrace soil acidity gradient...", published in Plant and Soil, volume 171, pages 255-262, in 1995. This newest paper, just out a few weeks ago, is: M. Gabriela Mattera, et al. 2024. Intraspecific variation in leaf (poly)phenolic content of a southern hemisphere beech (Nothofagus antarctica) growing under different environmental conditions. Nature, Scientific Reports (2024) 14:20050. Investigation of intraspecific variation of polyphenol (aka tannin) content in tree leaves as a response to different environmental conditions is something I kind of pioneered in 1995. Soil properties are a very important environmental condition influencing how much polyphenol a plant will need to make in order to be competitive. Beech trees growing on acidic, silica-rich soils produce higher concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form decomposition-resistant leaf litter that accumulates above the mineral soil surface. (mor type humus) Beech trees growing on near-neutral pH, calcareous soils produce lower concentrations of polyphenols. Consequently they form easily-decomposed leaf litter that is rapidly incorporated into the mineral soil. (mull type humus) The capacity of trees to regulate decomposition and accumulation of soil organic matter through alteration of their polyphenol content is of GREAT SIGNIFICANCE for efforts to mitigate climate change. One goal of the research in this most recent paper (Mattera et al) was to "..also provide some clues about the performance of N. antarctica under future climate scenarios." Climate change has harmful feedbacks on plant chemistry. It is hoped that conscious management of plant chemistry could have eventually have beneficial feedbacks on climate change. To maximize carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. ------------------------------- The global environmental crisis will certainly get worse before it gets better. If it ever does get better. I am grateful to have lived long enough to see the new scientific paper that came out this April (2024), cited below. I am grateful that the knowledge I helped to discover about carbon and nitrogen cycling is being applied in the newest research, to help humanity address climate change. The very first post of this thread gives a broad background on the role of tannins in carbon sequestration and mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions. This paper was published April 10, 2024 B. Adamczyk. 2024. Tannins and climate change: Are tannins able to stabilize carbon in the soil? Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Volume 72, Issue 16, pages 8928-8932. This paper cites my tannin investigations and is highly relevant to the topic of carbon sequestration in agroecosystems. The author and I are quite familiar with each other's research. It was 35 years ago when I first became fully immersed in tannin (also known as polyphenol) research as a grad student at UC Berkeley. At that time, anti herbivore defense was presumed to be the sole adaptive value for plants to make tannins, despite little evidence that they are effective. Convoluted theories were created to explain why plant communities on highly infertile, acidic soils produced so much more tannin than plants on better soil, as somehow consistent with anti herbivore defense. At that time, nobody considered how tannin production could benefit the plants that produce them through their impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling. Tannins slow the decomposition of plant or soil organic matter they come into contact with. Tannins themselves are the substrate from which most soil humic acids are formed, having centuries long mean residence time in soil. It is highly gratifying to see this finally reach the point where the application to address climate change is being so explicitly identified in the title of a new paper. The most relevant posts of this thread are all compiled, beginning about 1/3 way down page 22 |
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