Abstract:
We evaluated stored carbon in the above ground biomass (AGB) and below ground biomass (BGB) of Porteresia coarctata for 12 consecutive years (2001-2012) along the Hooghly estuary (in the north east coast) and Mandovi estuary (in the west coast) of India. In this salt marsh grass species, the BGB is more (~65%) compared to AGB (~35%). The AGB of the species is more in the Hooghly estuarine region (186.88 gm m-2 to 262.82 gm m-2 ) compared to those sampled from the intertidal mudflats of the Mandovi estuary (98.66 gm m-2
to 173.66 gm m-2 ). The BGB ranges from 238.61 gm m-2 to 293.12 gm m-2 in the Hooghly estuarine stretch and in the Mandovi estuary the BGB ranges from 116.52 gm m-2 to 273.67 gm m-2 . The above ground carbon (AGC) exhibit a similar trend as that of AGB and BGB with more carbon content in the Hooghly estuarine region (58.33 gm m-2 to 104.30 gm m-2 ) compared to that of the Mandovi estuarine region in the west coast of India (32.57 gm m-2 to 63.82 gm m-2 ). The below ground carbon (BGC) ranged from 47.81 gm m-2 to 63.49 gm m2
in the mudflats of Hooghly estuary, where as in the Mandovi estuarine mudflats, the values ranged between 26.79 gm m-2 to 54.41gm m-2 . Significant spatio-temporal variations in AGB, BGB, AGC and BGC of the species were observed through ANOVA (p < 0.01). The present results suggest the potentiality of P. coarctata in sequestering carbon, which is primarily site specific because of different growth pattern and biomass.
