ORCID Profile
0000-0002-4245-3150
Current Organisations
Deakin University
,
University of Southern Queensland
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S43247-023-00838-X
Abstract: The soil in terrestrial and coastal blue carbon ecosystems is an important carbon sink. National carbon inventories require accurate assessments of soil carbon in these ecosystems to aid conservation, preservation, and nature-based climate change mitigation strategies. Here we harmonise measurements from Australia’s terrestrial and blue carbon ecosystems and apply multi-scale machine learning to derive spatially explicit estimates of soil carbon stocks and the environmental drivers of variation. We find that climate and vegetation are the primary drivers of variation at the continental scale, while ecosystem type, terrain, clay content, mineralogy and nutrients drive subregional variations. We estimate that in the top 0–30 cm soil layer, terrestrial ecosystems hold 27.6 Gt (19.6–39.0 Gt), and blue carbon ecosystems 0.35 Gt (0.20–0.62 Gt). Tall open eucalypt and mangrove forests have the largest soil carbon content by area, while eucalypt woodlands and hummock grasslands have the largest total carbon stock due to the vast areas they occupy. Our findings suggest these are essential ecosystems for conservation, preservation, emissions avoidance, and climate change mitigation because of the additional co-benefits they provide.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-05-2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.JENVMAN.2021.114301
Abstract: The restoration of blue carbon ecosystems, such as mangrove forests, is increasingly used as a management tool to mitigate climate change by removing and sequestering atmospheric carbon in the ground. However, estimates of carbon-offset potential are currently based on data from natural mangrove forests, potentially leading to overestimating the carbon-offset potential from restored mangroves. Here, in the first study of its kind, we utilise
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 26-05-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.05.24.445520
Abstract: The widely held assumption that any important scientific information would be available in English underlies the underuse of non-English-language science across disciplines. However, non-English-language science is expected to bring unique and valuable scientific information, especially in disciplines where the evidence is patchy, and for emergent issues where synthesising available evidence is an urgent challenge. Yet such contribution of non-English-language science to scientific communities and the application of science is rarely quantified. Here we show that non-English-language studies provide crucial evidence for informing global bio ersity conservation. By screening 419,680 peer-reviewed papers in 16 languages, we identified 1,234 non-English-language studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of bio ersity conservation interventions, compared to 4,412 English-language studies identified with the same criteria. Relevant non-English-language studies are being published at an increasing rate, and can expand the geographical (by 12-25%) and taxonomic (by 5-32%) coverage of English-language evidence, especially in bio erse regions, albeit often based on less robust study designs. Our results show that synthesising non-English-language studies is key to overcoming the widespread lack of local, context-dependent evidence and facilitating evidence-based conservation globally. We urge wider disciplines to rigorously reassess the untapped potential of non-English-language science in informing decisions to address other global challenges.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-08-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-06-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16237
Abstract: Agricultural practices have created tens of millions of small artificial water bodies (“farm dams” or “agricultural ponds”) to provide water for domestic livestock worldwide. Among freshwater ecosystems, farm dams have some of the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per m 2 due to fertilizer and manure run‐off boosting methane production—an extremely potent GHG. However, management strategies to mitigate the substantial emissions from millions of farm dams remain unexplored. We tested the hypothesis that installing fences to exclude livestock could reduce nutrients, improve water quality, and lower aquatic GHG emissions. We established a large‐scale experiment spanning 400 km across south‐eastern Australia where we compared unfenced ( N = 33) and fenced farm dams ( N = 31) within 17 livestock farms. Fenced farm dams recorded 32% less dissolved nitrogen, 39% less dissolved phosphorus, 22% more dissolved oxygen, and produced 56% less diffusive methane emissions than unfenced dams. We found no effect of farm dam management on diffusive carbon dioxide emissions and on the organic carbon in the soil. Dissolved oxygen was the most important variable explaining changes in carbon fluxes across dams, whereby doubling dissolved oxygen from 5 to 10 mg L −1 led to a 74% decrease in methane fluxes, a 124% decrease in carbon dioxide fluxes, and a 96% decrease in CO 2 ‐eq (CH 4 + CO 2 ) fluxes. Dams with very high dissolved oxygen ( mg L −1 ) showed a switch from positive to negative CO 2 ‐eq. (CO 2 + CH 4 ) fluxes (i.e., negative radiative balance), indicating a positive contribution to reduce atmospheric warming. Our results demonstrate that simple management actions can dramatically improve water quality and decrease methane emissions while contributing to more productive and sustainable farming.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 07-10-2021
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PBIO.3001296
Abstract: The widely held assumption that any important scientific information would be available in English underlies the underuse of non-English-language science across disciplines. However, non-English-language science is expected to bring unique and valuable scientific information, especially in disciplines where the evidence is patchy, and for emergent issues where synthesising available evidence is an urgent challenge. Yet such contribution of non-English-language science to scientific communities and the application of science is rarely quantified. Here, we show that non-English-language studies provide crucial evidence for informing global bio ersity conservation. By screening 419,679 peer-reviewed papers in 16 languages, we identified 1,234 non-English-language studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of bio ersity conservation interventions, compared to 4,412 English-language studies identified with the same criteria. Relevant non-English-language studies are being published at an increasing rate in 6 out of the 12 languages where there were a sufficient number of relevant studies. Incorporating non-English-language studies can expand the geographical coverage (i.e., the number of 2° × 2° grid cells with relevant studies) of English-language evidence by 12% to 25%, especially in bio erse regions, and taxonomic coverage (i.e., the number of species covered by the relevant studies) by 5% to 32%, although they do tend to be based on less robust study designs. Our results show that synthesising non-English-language studies is key to overcoming the widespread lack of local, context-dependent evidence and facilitating evidence-based conservation globally. We urge wider disciplines to rigorously reassess the untapped potential of non-English-language science in informing decisions to address other global challenges. Please see the Supporting information files for Alternative Language Abstracts.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-02-2012
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-02-2023
Abstract: Many degraded ecosystems need active restoration to conserve bio ersity and re‐establish ecosystem function, both highlighted targets of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the proposed EU Nature restoration law. Soil translocation, where both plant propagules and their associated soil biota are co‐introduced, has increasingly been proposed as a powerful restoration technique for terrestrial ecosystems. However, a synthesis of the effectiveness of this method across ecosystems is lacking. To address how soil translocation affects restoration success, we performed a meta‐analysis synthesizing data from 46 field experiments and their respective reference ecosystems in 17 countries across four continents. In each experiment, vegetation composition was recorded in response to soil translocation treatments and the resultant vegetational changes ( ersity and composition) were quantified. We found that soil translocation leads to plant community development further away from the control and more towards the reference plant communities compared with treatments where only plant propagules were introduced. However, the variability of effect sizes among experiments was large, suggesting strong dependence of restoration success on restoration context. We found that restoration success was more likely on loamy soils and when translocation treatments were implemented over larger spatial areas ( m 2 ). Furthermore, we found that restoration success either consistently increased or decreased over time depending on the experiment. Not only is this congruent with positive feedbacks between plant and soil communities driving plant community development, but it also suggests that the composition of the translocated plant and soil communities, and initial starting conditions, are critical for long‐term restoration success. Synthesis and applications . Our analysis highlights soil translocation can be a successful restoration method across a broad range of ecosystems. However, its implementation needs to depend on a thorough evaluation of local conditions and the potential added value. Further refinement of soil translocation techniques is needed to increase success rates.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date: 11-2013
DOI: 10.1086/673239
Publisher: California Digital Library (CDL)
Date: 18-05-2022
DOI: 10.31223/X5193Z
Abstract: Agricultural practices have created tens of millions of small artificial water bodies (“farm dams” or “agricultural ponds”) to provide water for domestic livestock worldwide. Among freshwater ecosystems, farm dams have some of the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per m2 due to fertilizer and manure run-off boosting methane production – an extremely potent GHG. However, management strategies to mitigate the substantial emissions from millions of farm dams remain unexplored. We tested the hypothesis that installing fences to exclude livestock could reduce nutrients, improve water quality, and lower aquatic GHG emissions. We established a large-scale experiment spanning 400 km across south-eastern Australia where we compared unfenced (N = 33) and fenced farm dams (N = 31) within 17 livestock farms. Fenced farm dams recorded 32% less dissolved nitrogen, 39% less dissolved phosphorus, 22% more dissolved oxygen, and produced 56% less diffusive methane emissions than unfenced dams. We found no effect of farm dam management on diffusive carbon dioxide emissions and on the organic carbon in the soil. Dissolved oxygen was the most important variable explaining changes in carbon fluxes across dams, whereby doubling dissolved oxygen from 5 to 10 mg L-1 led to a 74% decrease in methane fluxes, a 124% decrease in carbon dioxide fluxes, and a 96% decrease in CO2-eq (CH4 + CO2) fluxes. Dams with very high dissolved oxygen ( mg L-1) showed a switch from positive to negative CO2-eq. (CO2 + CH4) fluxes (i.e., negative radiative balance), indicating a positive contribution to reduce atmospheric warming. Our results demonstrate that simple management actions can dramatically improve water quality and decrease methane emissions while contributing to more productive and sustainable farming.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 22-09-2020
DOI: 10.3390/D12090363
Abstract: Microbial symbionts are gaining attention as crucial drivers of invasive species spread and dominance. To date, much research has quantified the net effects of plant–microbe interactions on the relative success of native and invasive species. However, little is known about how the structure (composition and ersity) of microbial symbionts can differ among native and invasive species, or vary across the invasive landscape. Here, we explore the structure of endosphere and soil fungal communities associated with a monoculture-forming widespread invader, Phragmites australis, and co-occurring native species. Using field survey data from marshes in coastal Louisiana, we tested three hypotheses: (1) Phragmites australis root and soil fungal communities differ from that of co-occurring natives, (2) Phragmites australis monocultures harbor distinct fungal communities at the expanding edge compared to the monodominant center, and (3) proximity to the P. australis invading front alters native root endosphere and soil fungal community structure. We found that P. australis cultivates root and soil fungal communities with higher richness, ersity, and pathogen abundances compared to native species. While P. australis was found to have higher endosphere pathogen abundances at its expanding edge compared to the monodominant center, we found no evidence of compositional changes or pathogen spillover in native species in close proximity to the invasion front. This work suggests that field measurements of fungal endosphere communities in native and invasive plants are useful to help understand (or rule out) mechanisms of invasion.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-03-2021
Publisher: California Digital Library (CDL)
Date: 07-12-2020
DOI: 10.31223/X5NP53
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-11-2021
DOI: 10.1111/AVSC.12539
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.JENVMAN.2018.08.050
Abstract: Previous studies have reported that chemical weed control will be less effective for some weed species under future atmospheric CO
No related grants have been discovered for Pawel Waryszak.