November 16, 2009 "The key difference between these coastal
habitats and forests is that mangroves, seagrasses and the
plants in salt marshes are extremely efficient at burying carbon
in the sediment below them where it can stay for centuries or
even millennia. Tropical forests are not as effective at
transferring carbon into the soil below them, instead storing
most carbon in the living plants and litter," explains the
paper's author and Conservation International’s Marine Climate
Change Director, Dr. Emily Pidgeon. "But coastal ecosystems keep
sequestering large amounts of carbon throughout their life
cycle. Equally, the majority of carbon stays locked away in the
soil rather than the plant, so only a relatively small amount is
released when the plant dies." Seagrass and mangroves in Belize.
Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Coastal habitats with vegetation
"[contribute] about half of the total carbon sequestration in
ocean sediments even though they account for less than 2 percent
of the ocean surface,” Pidgeon w