Spatio-Temporal Variation of Stored Carbon In Porteresia Coarctata Along The East And West Coasts Of India

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.