Radiative forcing of methane fluxes offsets net carbon dioxide uptake for a tropical flooded forest.

Wetlands are important sources of methane (CH4 ) and sinks of carbon dioxide (CO2 ). However, little is known about CH4 and CO2 fluxes and dynamics of seasonally flooded tropical forests of South America in relation to local carbon (C) balances and atmospheric exchange. We measured net ecosystem fluxes of CH4 and CO2 in the Pantanal over 2014-2017 using tower-based eddy covariance along with C measurements in soil, biomass and water. Our data indicate that seasonally flooded tropical forests are potentially large sinks for CO2 but strong sources of CH4 , particularly during inundation when reducing conditions in soils increase CH4 production and limit CO2 release. During inundation when soils were anaerobic, the flooded forest emitted 0.11 ± 0.002 g CH4 -C m-2  d-1 and absorbed 1.6 ± 0.2 g CO2 -C m-2  d-1 (mean ± 95% confidence interval for the entire study period). Following the recession of floodwaters, soils rapidly became aerobic and CH4 emissions decreased significantly (0.002 ± 0.001 g CH4 -C m-2  d-1 ) but remained a net source, while the net CO2 flux flipped from being a net sink during anaerobic periods to acting as a source during aerobic periods. CH4 fluxes were 50 times higher in the wet season; DOC was a minor component in the net ecosystem carbon balance. Daily fluxes of CO2 and CH4 were similar in all years for each season, but annual net fluxes varied primarily in relation to flood duration. While the ecosystem was a net C sink on an annual basis (absorbing 218 g C m-2 (as CH4 -C + CO2 -C) in anaerobic phases and emitting 76 g C m-2 in aerobic phases), high CH4 effluxes during the anaerobic flooded phase and modest CH4 effluxes during the aerobic phase indicate that seasonally flooded tropical forests can be a net source of radiative forcings on an annual basis, thus acting as an amplifying feedback on global warming.

Impacts of land-use and land-cover change on stream hydrochemistry in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes.

Studies on the impacts of land-use and land-cover change on stream hydrochemistry in active deforestation zones of the Amazon agricultural frontier are limited and have often used low-temporal-resolution datasets. Moreover, these impacts are not concurrently assessed in well-established agricultural areas and new deforestations hotspots. We aimed to identify these impacts using an experimental setup to collect high-temporal-resolution hydrological and hydrochemical data in two pairs of low-order streams in catchments under contrasting land use and land cover (native vegetation vs. pasture) in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. Our results indicate that the conversion of natural landscapes to pastures increases carbon and nutrient fluxes via streamflow in both biomes. These changes were the greatest in total inorganic carbon in the Amazon and in potassium in the Cerrado, representing a 5.0- and 5.5-fold increase in the fluxes of each biome, respectively. We found that stormflow, which is often neglected in studies on stream hydrochemistry in the tropics, plays a substantial role in the carbon and nutrient fluxes, especially in the Amazon biome, as its contributions to hydrochemical fluxes are mostly greater than the volumetric contribution to the total streamflow. These findings demonstrate that assessments of the impacts of deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes should also take into account rapid hydrological pathways; however, this can only be achieved through collection of high-temporal-resolution data.