What Factors Control Carbon Mineralization and Flux in Bog Soils and Ho

I. Introduction What is a Bog? The word bog, from the gray-headed Gaelic bogach, is commonly used to refer to any stretch of waterlogged, marshy ground. The words, fen, moor, muskeg, peatland, and mire be also used to describe these areas, which can superstar to some confusion over margeinology. Specifically, a bog is a peat accumulating wetland that has no significant inflows or outflows and supports acidophilic mosses, particularly sphagnum (Gosselink and Mitsch 1993). The vast majority of bogs are located in the moist, cool boreal regions of North the States and Eurasia. Bogs are also called peatlands because of the peat they accumulate, but peatland is a more general term that includes minerotrophic and transition peatlands. These wetlands also accumulate peat, but they differ topographically and hydrologically from bogs. unbent bogs (ombrotrophic peatlands) are characterized by peat layers higher than their surroundings they are often called brocaded bogs. They also recei ve nutrients and minerals exclusively by precipitation, i.e. they are hydrologically isolated (Gosselink and Mitsch 1993 p.374). They progress to in a variety of ways, but once ombrotrophic (rain-nourished) peatlands develop they are stable under fairly wide environmental fluctuation (Gosselink and Mitsch 1993 p.372). This preaching will be limited to the true bogs, and they will be referred to as bogs or peatlands. II. Peat Soils and Carbon MineralizationPeat is the name for the soil that forms in bogs and other peatlands. It is an entire soil (Histosol), composed almost entirely of partially decayed define matter. The high percentage of organic fibers in peat makes it a fibrist, which is a Histosol containing less(prenominal) than one third decayed organic matter... ... the peat. Journal of Ecology 81 (1993), 615-625.Siegel, D. I. et al. Climate driven flushing of pore water in peatlands Nature 374 (6 April 1995), 531-533. Singer, Michael J. and Donald N. Munns. Soils An Intr oduction. tertiary ed. New Jersey, Prentice-Hall 1991. Soil Taxonomy USDA Soil Conservation Service untaught Handbook No. 436. 1975. T.R. Knowles and R. Moore. The influence of water table levels on methane and degree Celsius dioxide levels from peatland soils. Canadian Journal of Soil Science 69 1 (1989), 33-38.Woodwell, George M. biotic feedbacks from the warming of the earth. Biotic Feedbacks in the Global Climatic System. New York, Oxford University defend 1995, p3-19. Yavitt, Joseph B. et al. Control of carbon mineralization to CH4 and CO2 in anaerobic, Sphagnum-derived peat from Big Run Bog. Biogeochemistry 4 2 (1987), 141-157.