AUTHOR=Macreadie Peter I. , Wartman Melissa , Roe Philippa , Hodge Jessica M. , Helber Stephanie B. , Waryszak Pawel , Raoult Vincent TITLE=Seagrasses produce most of the soil blue carbon in three Maldivian islands JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science VOLUME=11 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1359779 DOI=10.3389/fmars.2024.1359779 ISSN=2296-7745 ABSTRACT=
Blue carbon is fast garnering international interest for its disproportionate contribution to global carbon stocks. However, our understanding of the size of these blue carbon stocks, as well as the provenance of carbon that is stored within them, is still poor. This is especially pertinent for many small-island nations that may have substantial blue carbon ecosystems that are poorly studied. Here, we present a preliminary assessment of blue carbon from three islands in the Maldives. The higher purpose of this research was to assess the feasibility of using blue carbon to help offset carbon emissions associated with Maldivian tourism, the largest Maldivian industry with one of the highest destination-based carbon footprints, globally. We used stable isotope mixing models to identify how habitats contributed to carbon found in sediments, and Loss on Ignition (LoI) to determine carbon content. We found that for the three surveyed islands, seagrasses (