Effects of plant traits and ecosystem properties on wave attenuation and soil carbon content

Understanding the relationships among the environment, species traits and ecosystem properties is important for developing management measures that optimize the delivery of ecosystem services (ESs). Here, we identify the most important relationships responsible for the delivery of two key ESs provided by tidal marshes: (1) nature-based shoreline protection through wave attenuation and (2) mitigation of climate change through soil carbon storage. In two tidal zones below and above the mean high water (MHW, Elbe Estuary, Germany) level, we measured environmental parameters, such as soil salinity and inundation, as well as plant traits representing adaptations to hydrodynamic stress and strongly influencing decomposition rates.
Multiple linear regression results showed that wave attenuation rates were positively related to aboveground community biomass and stem bending resistance, and soil organic carbon was positively related to stem-specific density (below the MHW level). In the tidal zo..., , Microsoft Excel,