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Abstract
Peatlands represent large terrestrial carbon banks. Given that most peat accumulates in boreal regions, where low temperatures and water saturation preserve organic matter, the existence of peat in (sub)tropical regions remains enigmatic. Here we examined peat and plant chemistry across a latitudinal transect from the Arctic to the tropics. Near-surface low-latitude peat has lower carbohydrate and greater aromatic content than near-surface high-latitude peat, creating a reduced oxidation state and resulting recalcitrance. This recalcitrance allows peat to persist in the (sub)tropics despite warm temperatures. Because we observed similar declines in carbohydrate content with depth in high-latitude peat, our data explain recent field-scale deep peat warming experiments in which catotelm (deeper) peat remained stable despite temperature increases up to 9 °C. We suggest that high-latitude deep peat reservoirs may be stabilized in the face of climate change by their ultimately lower carbohydrate and higher aromatic composition, similar to tropical peats.
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1 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA; Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
2 Duke University Wetland Center, Nicholas School of the Environment, Durham, NC, USA
3 Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany; Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA
4 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
5 Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
6 Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, Singapore, Singapore
7 Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
8 Laboratory of Materials, Catalysis, Environment and Analytical Methods (MCEMA-CHAMSI), EDST and Faculty of Sciences I, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon
9 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
10 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
11 Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
12 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
13 Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
14 Département de Géographie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
15 Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
16 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA