Skip to main content

EDITORIAL article

Front. Earth Sci., 27 February 2024
Sec. Biogeoscience
This article is part of the Research Topic Wetland Ecology and Biogeochemistry Under Natural and Human Disturbance- Volume II View all 8 articles

Editorial: Wetland ecology and biogeochemistry under natural and human disturbance- volume II

  • 1Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Carbon Sources and Sinks, China Meteorological Administration (ECSS-CMA), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  • 2Environment and Sustainability, School of Science and the Environment, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Corner Brook, NL, Canada
  • 3Key Laboratory of Aquatic Botany and Watershed Ecology, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China
  • 4Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China
  • 5Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States
  • 6Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umea, Sweden

Wetlands cover only about 5%–8% of the world’s land surface, but they provide essential ecosystem services for humankind, including carbon sequestration, climate mitigation, flood mitigation, coastal protection, water purification, and habitat provision (Mitsch et al., 2013; Xu et al., 2020). Nevertheless, local communities have limited knowledge about wetlands, which influences the implementation of wetland protection programs (Allahyari et al.). In addition, wetlands are highly threatened by climate change and human activities, such as flooding, global warming, grazing, drainage, cultivation, water pollution, and urbanization (Aura et al.; Sieben et al., 2017). Therefore, there is an urgent need to protect wetlands, and investigate the response of wetland ecosystems to these disturbances.

This Research Topic consists of six original papers and one review paper, which attempted to help address the abovementioned issues. Recent findings on the effects of climate change and human disturbances on wetland functions and biochemical processes have been reported.

Wetlands are essential carbon sinks due to their higher productivity than ecosystem respiration (Noumonvi et al.). Ecosystem respiration (ER) is composed of autotrophic respiration (AR) that consists of respiration by plant parts, and heterotrophic respiration (HR) that consists of respiration by microbial bacteria. With climate warming and human drainage, ER could increase (Zhou et al.), and the contributions of HR and AR to the ER can be altered (Rankin et al.). Not only respiration but also methane (CH4) emission is affected by the climate and human activities. It has been reported that CH4 emission in wetlands would increase 50%–80% by the year 2,100 under climate change (Koffi et al., 2020) and significantly increase under human disturbances (Benavides et al.).

Besides carbon cycling, nitrogen cycling in wetland ecosystems is also affected by climate change and human disturbances. For instance, climate warming could mitigate the positive effect of nitrogen deposition on nitrous oxide emissions (Gong et al., 2019; Gong and Wu, 2021). Urease and nitrate reductase activities have been reported to increase with climate change and human activities (Chang et al.).

The papers brought together a wide range of aspects related to the impacts of climate change and human disturbances on wetland ecosystems, which helps us better understand the carbon and nitrogen cycling of wetlands. In addition, the dominant drivers and biogeochemical dynamics for disturbed wetlands have been well illustrated, which benefits the development of wetland management and restoration strategies.

Author contributions

JW: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. YG: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. HC: Writing–review and editing. JL: Writing–review and editing. JJ: Writing–review and editing.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The authors declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

References

Gong, Y., and Wu, J. (2021). Vegetation composition modulates the interaction of climate warming and elevated nitrogen deposition on nitrous oxide flux in a boreal peatland. Glob. Change Biol. 27, 5588–5598. doi:10.1111/gcb.15865

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Gong, Y., Wu, J., Vogt, J., and Le, T. B. (2019). Warming reduces the increase in N2O emission under nitrogen fertilization in a boreal peatland. Sci. Total Environ. 664, 72–78. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.012

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Koffi, E. N., Bergamaschi, P., Alkama, R., and Cescatti, A. (2020). An observation-constrained assessment of the climate sensitivity and future trajectories of wetland methane emissions. Sci. Adv. 6, eaay4444. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aay4444

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Mitsch, W. J., Bernal, B., Nahlik, A. M., Mander, Ü., Zhang, L., Anderson, C. J., et al. (2013). Wetlands, carbon, and climate change. Landsc. Ecol. 28, 583–597. doi:10.1007/s10980-012-9758-8

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Sieben, E. J. J., Khubeka, S. P., Sithole, S., Job, N. M., and Kotze, D. C. (2017). The classification of wetlands: integration of top-down and bottom-up approaches and their significance for ecosystem service determination. Wetl. Ecol. Manag. 26, 441–458. doi:10.1007/s11273-017-9585-4

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Xu, X., Chen, M., Yang, G., Jiang, B., and Zhang, J. (2020). Wetland ecosystem services research: a critical review. Glob. Ecol. Conservation 22, e01027. doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01027

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Keywords: wetlands, ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, human disturbance, climate change, natural disturbance

Citation: Wu J, Gong Y, Chen H, Loisel J and Jarveoja J (2024) Editorial: Wetland ecology and biogeochemistry under natural and human disturbance- volume II. Front. Earth Sci. 12:1369852. doi: 10.3389/feart.2024.1369852

Received: 13 January 2024; Accepted: 24 January 2024;
Published: 27 February 2024.

Edited and reviewed by:

Timothy Ian Eglinton, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Copyright © 2024 Wu, Gong, Chen, Loisel and Jarveoja. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Jianghua Wu, jianghuaw@mun.ca, jianghuawu@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.