How can carbon be sequestered in terrestrial ecosystems?
Carbon can be sequestered in terrestrial ecosystems by • Increasing the amount of aboveground biomass in an ecosystem. Biomass is matter originally created by living organisms. For example trees, dead leaves, bacteria and people are all biomass. The ultimate origin of the carbon in virtually all biomass is atmospheric CO2. So storing biomass is storing atmospheric carbon. Dry biomass is roughly 50% carbon by weight. Forest ecosystems contain more living biomass than any other ecosystem so converting grasslands or croplands to forest is one way of sequestering carbon. • Increasing the amount of carbon held in soils. Soil carbon originates primarily from plant and fungal material which is then processed by other fungi and bacteria. Soil carbon can also originate from charcoal or char created when an ecosystem burns. Many factors control how much carbon goes into soil and how long the carbon stays in the soil. CSiTE is focused on understanding soil carbon and enhancement of soil carbon st
