Fig. 5: Comparisons of modern measured atmospheric P deposition and peatland catotelm stoichiometry and C burial.
From: Phosphorus supply affects long-term carbon accumulation in mid-latitude ombrotrophic peatlands
The positive associations between P deposition and catotelm P:C (A) and PAR (C) fit our expectations because phosphorus depends exclusively on external supply. The negative relationships observed between P deposition, the intensity of decomposition (inferred from the N:C ratio; (B)) and rates of catotelm carbon burial (D) are more notable, pointing to an effect of P supply on carbon dynamics. Data points are regional median ± standard error. Atmospheric P deposition (Pdep) represents the median of between 1 and 28 monitoring stations to account for local variance and bars represent standard errors where more than one monitoring station was used (see Fig. 1 and ‘Methods’). The equivalent values for acrotelm peats are presented in Supplementary Fig. 4 and show similar associations.
