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Climate and sedimentary structure drive deep labile carbon accumulation in alpine wetlands


Abstract

Wetlands serve as vital carbon sinks; however, compared with the surface carbon pool, the relative stock and stability of organic carbon (OC) buried in deep sediment layers remain uncertain, particularly in alpine regions. Based on 42 sediment across seven wetlands on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, this study disentangled the OC accumulation process and its drivers since the Holocene. Our results highlighted that deep sediments ( >1 m) stored ~70% of the total OC in alpine wetlands, much of which was labile. Historical warming facilitated the accumulation of such labile OC. Moreover, an intercalated sedimentary structure, formed by silt and fine-grained clay both below and above the OC-rich layer, prevented them from rapid decomposition. Given that elevated groundwater temperatures and intensified hydrological processes in alpine regions may stimulate the decomposition of these massive labile OC pools, releasing carbon into surface water or the atmosphere, future climate change assessments should take this long-overlooked carbon pool into account.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study were deposited on figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30655583).

Code availability

The R packages utilized in this study are publicly available, and no custom code was used.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2024YFF0808700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42407285), the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (Grant No. 2019QZKK0304), and the Key Science and Technology Program of Xizang (Grant No. XZ202101ZD0011G). We thank the Geothermal Geological Brigade (Tibet Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources) for drilling and sampling, and Dr. Gao Shaopeng (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS) for his supervision of the XRF scanning. No specific permissions were required for geological sampling. We sincerely thank the editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and insightful suggestions, which greatly improved the quality of this manuscript.

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J.D. and Yanfen Wang conceived the study and designed the research protocol. Y.Y., Z.N., Y.Z., Z.W., L.M., Q.L., and Yu Wu carried out the field investigation and sample collection. Y.Y., X.W., Haijun Zhang, D.C., and C.G. performed data processing and statistical analyses. Y.Y. and X.W. drafted the initial manuscript. J.D., Hui Zhang, Y.H., H.N., K.X., and X.C. contributed to data interpretation and critically revised the manuscript. Yanfen Wang acquired funding for the project.

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Jianqing Du or Xiaoyong Cui.

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Communications Earth and Environment thanks Alberto Araneda and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Somaparna Ghosh [A peer review file is available].

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Yang, Y., Wang, X., Du, J. et al. Climate and sedimentary structure drive deep labile carbon accumulation in alpine wetlands.
Commun Earth Environ (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03081-8

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