Trees Are Major Conduits for Methane Egress from Tropical Forested Wetlands
| Author | Sunitha R. Pangala, Sam Moore, Edward R. C. Hornibrook, Vincent Gauci |
|---|---|
| Published | December 2012 |
| Format | Research paper |
TL;DR — Field measurements in a Borneo peat swamp showing that tree stems emitted 62–87% of the ecosystem’s methane, a pathway standard surface-chamber methods miss.
New Phytologist 197 (2013), pp. 524–531 (first online December 2012), by researchers from the Open University, Oxford and Bristol. Wetlands are the largest natural source of atmospheric methane, and tropical wetlands the biggest part of that; the authors note that methane inventories built from ground-level flux chambers ignore emissions from tree stems.
Measuring methane from tree stems, peat surfaces and root pneumatophores in a tropical forested peatland in Southeast Asia, they found tree stems emitted far more than the peat, accounting for 62–87% of total ecosystem flux, with stem diameter, wood density and dissolved methane in pore water controlling the rate. They argue this pathway must be included to reconcile field inventories with top-down global methane estimates. (The download’s filename paraphrases the first line of the abstract, not the title.)
What it is: a peer-reviewed ecology paper.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
8 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.