Although peatlands are mostly found in northern Europe, there are also remnants to be found in Slovakia, where the ECORESP-project recently has restored 12 peatlands.
Peatlands are mainly found in northern Europe, but they could be found elsewhere, including in Slovakia. However, in our country these are only remnants, over 90% have been destroyed. The Daphne Institute of Applied Ecology and other partners have revitalised twelve peatlands. Scientists from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) were also involved in the research activities.
One of them was Magni Olsen Kyrkjeeide. In an interview, she explains how peatlands store carbon, what happens if they are drained or the peat is extracted, and which peat bog species she thinks has superhero properties.
Nine per cent of Norway's territory is covered by peatlands, far more than we have in Slovakia. Many Slovaks have never seen a peatland in their lives. Is it, on the contrary, something commonplace for Norwegians? Does every Norwegian know what a peatland is and what species grow there? For example, did you play in a peatland as a child?
All Norwegians know what a peatland is. We all know what the cloudberries are - the orange berries we pick on the peat bog. It's quite common to serve this as a dessert at Christmas.
What is your personal relationship to the peatlands?
Where I grew up, there weren't any major peatland areas around. But from the time I was ten years old we had a cottage between two large peatlands. I spent many weekends and summer holidays there as a child. We used to go cross-country skiing on that big flat area in the winter and in the summer, we used to pick berries and play there.
We had a little lake right below the cottage and we swam there a lot. My parents gave us life jackets because you couldn't stand on the peaty bottom there. We had inflatable animals and a little boat, and we played there for days. Then we climbed up on the shore and played in the peat, jumping up and down.
As an adult you became interested in the peatlands scientifically, particularly their ability to store carbon. How does that work?
Peatlands are water-saturated habitats, there is very little oxygen in the soil and plant decomposition is very slow. Instead of decomposing, their bodies are deposited underground to form peat. The volume of soil is constantly increasing a little.
So, the key is that the plants fix carbon from the atmosphere into their bodies, they do not decompose because of the lack of oxygen and the carbon is not released back into the air. But we know of another type of decomposition that takes place without air. For example, we use this in biogas plants, and it produces methane.
Yes, and that is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Does this type of decomposition also happen on peat bogs?
Methane is produced on peatlands. But because plant growth outweighs decomposition, carbon dioxide uptake is more significant than methane emissions. An equilibrium is created where the peatland sequesters carbon from the atmosphere and stores it. More carbon goes into the peat than escapes from it.
Some studies show that peat mosses work well with methanotrophic organisms that consume methane. So they probably help to take up the methane and turn it into carbon dioxide, which the plants can use. So when there are peatmosses growing on peat bogs, there will be less methane emissions.
So even if we take methane into account, they still act as net stores of carbon?
Yes, if it is undisturbed peatland.
What happens if we disrupt it?
If we damage it, for example by draining it, then oxygen enters the system and decomposition begins. Carbon dioxide is released, but methane emissions cease.
They will only form in the pits where water is still held. No methane emissions will escape from the surface of the drained peatland, but carbon dioxide emissions will be high.
If we revitalise it and restore the water regime, methane emissions will initially be high. But peatland restoration is a long-term affair. It is not something we can fix in a short time. So, in the long term, CO2 uptake will again be higher than methane emissions.
It is said that peatlands store carbon better than forests. Can you explain that?
Carbon stocks in peatlands are much higher than carbon stocks in forests. In fact, all the carbon in peatlands is stored underground and will continue to increase over time. While you have more "turnover" in a forest, quite a lot of carbon is lost. But an undisturbed forest also acts as a carbon store, but not as large as a peatland.
But globally we have a lot more woodland than peatland?
Yet the carbon stocks in peatlands are greater.
How big a source of global greenhouse gas emissions are disturbed peatlands?
The greenhouse gas emissions from degraded peatlands contribute to 4% of the global emissions.
Scientific research shows that getting water back into degraded peatlands is key to saving them. Then, after years, they will cease to be a source of emissions. Restoring their ability to be a net carbon store takes even longer. How much longer?
It depends on how badly the peatland has been degraded. But you must think of it as a long-term thing, on the scale of fifty, a hundred years.
So, from a climate change perspective, it's something of a long-term investment. But carbon storage is not the only service that peatlands provide. What other benefits do they bring us?
They hold a lot of water and help regulate the water regime. They purify water and are an important source of drinking water in some parts of the world. They are home to species; in Slovakia this is very important as you have so little left. Habitats for these rare wetland species are limited and fragmented. Their preservation and restoration are very necessary if we want to prevent species extinction.
And we have both good and "bad" ecosystem services. You can extract peat from them, but that is not sustainable.
This is not happening in Slovakia now. Is peat mined in Norway?
A bill has been tabled that bans peatland degradation completely, which would be a really good thing, but we are still losing peatlands in Norway. We are extracting some for gardening, but peat bogs are diminishing mostly for infrastructure - building roads, industrial parks, housing, cottages. We used to drain them for agricultural and forestry purposes. And we had a couple of sites where peat was either extracted for soil substrate or, along the coast where there is less forest, used as fuel instead of wood, but that was in the past.
We worked together on the project Ecohydrological restoration of peat bogs in the Carpathians, which consists of revitalising twelve Slovak sites. You took samples from there to study the environmental DNA. What is it?
When you take a sample from the environment, from the soil or water, you can find out which species are there based on DNA residues. It can be DNA from microorganisms, but it can also be DNA that's got in there from larger animals or plants, whether it's a piece of droppings or a hair. That way you can get an overview of what species without having to go in there and record it.
It gives a good baseline of what's there. If you go back to the site in ten years and take samples again, you can see if the biodiversity is changing back to more pristine peatlands sites according to what you expect from the restorations measures.
You have calculated how much carbon is stored at all project sites. This is equivalent to the annual emissions of over 43,000 Slovaks. Klinské peatland and Tisovnica stood out for the huge amount of stored carbon, in absolute numbers, as well as for the very favourable ratio of the amount of carbon per unit area. Why are they so rich in peat?
They're bogs, they've probably been there for many thousands of years, peat has been added every year. Bogs are usually the deepest type of peatland. Fens don't tend to be that deep, but as they turn into bogs they start to grow in height.
And in the case of Tisovnica, our calculation shows a minimum. But there are also trees there, so there is a lot of carbon stored above ground in the trees as well (Daphne's note: Tisovnica is a forest peatland).
What peatland species do you think are the most fascinating?
My favourite species is the moss - Sphagnum. They are unique and have a lot of superhero qualities. They can acidify the environment so that other species don't like being there. They are somewhat antiseptic, so you can use them as a sanitiser. They are the ones storing the largest bulk of carbon in northern peatlands.
You have even had a new Sphagnum species in North America named after you. How did you find it and is there something special, unique about it? To non-expert it is hard to notice the differences between these species?
I studied the genetic variation and structure of one of the most common peatmosses, Sphagnum magellanicum, in my phd, and found that this widely distributed species consisted of more than one species. Me and my colleagues described two new species for Europe, while researchers in USA described a third one from the southeastern states of USA and named it after me, Peatmosses are generally known to be difficult to identify to species, and this group of species are quite difficult even for experts.
Visit the project website: Ecohydrological Restoration of Peatlands in the Carpathians