Wang et al. (2026): The impact of land use and land cover changes on mangrove carbon sinks and methane fluxes in Qi’ao Island, China

Yixuan Wang, Yijie Wang, Ziming Zhang, Tingting Li, Fan Wang, Juan Su, Xiaosong Zhao, Xudong Zhu and Zhangcai Qin, IN: Journal of Plant Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtag077

Mangroves are critical blue carbon ecosystems, essential for coastal preservation and carbon sequestration. Despite widespread attention to mangrove deforestation and reforestation driven by land-use/land-cover changes (LULCCs), integrated assessments of CO₂ and CH₄ fluxes across diverse transitions under the same spatiotemporal context remain scarce, hindering advances in restoration planning and land-use emission modeling. This study investigated five LULCC types on Qi’ao Island, China: mudflat, native Kandelia obovata, exotic Sonneratia apetala, S. apetala deforestation areas, and abandoned fish ponds. Combining one year of in situ carbon flux measurements with remote sensing data (1980–2020), the authors assessed changes in carbon sink dynamics and CH₄ fluxes at both site and regional scales.

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