Matthew Saunders

Assistant Professor in Plant Ecophysiology, Trinity College Dublin

Matthew Saunders is an Assistant Professor in Plant Ecophysiology, in the Trinity College Dublin, School of Natural Sciences, Botany Discipline. He specialises in the field of plant and environment physiology, in particular how plants respond to changes in their physical, chemical and biological environments and how this information can be used to assess the resilience and adaptive capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to global environmental change. This work utilises an integrated experimental and model-based approach to assess the physiological and environmental processes that regulate plant productivity, carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas dynamics, plant-water relations and energy budgets at the leaf, whole plant and ecosystem scale.

Recent projects have focussed on the impacts of peatland restoration, afforestation and extreme climatic events on carbon, water and greenhouse gas dynamics in both temperate and tropical climates. This work has directly contributed to the development of policy relevant, sustainable land management tools that are centred on the role of terrestrial ecosystems in climate change adaptation and mitigation.

---

Counting carbon on agricultural peat soils

Peatlands represent an integral part of the Irish landscape, covering approximately 1.46 Mha nationally, which represents approximately 21% of the land surface. Globally, these ecosystems are one of the most important terrestrial carbon (C) stores. They are made up of accumulated organic material that is partially decomposed and sequestered over long-time periods (thousands of years) when the soil is waterlogged, as low concentrations of oxygen in the substrate limits decomposition.

In Ireland, peat soils store approximately 2.2 Gt of C, which constitutes 62–75% of the total soil C pool. However, over 90% of the peatland area in Ireland has undergone land use change, through drainage and conversion to agriculture, forestry or either domestic or industrial extraction.

The spatial extent of grasslands on drained organic soils is estimated to be 339,000 hectares, however there is still some uncertainty on the total extent of peat-based grasslands in Ireland. This figure may increase closer to 500,000 hectares when shallow peats and soils with high organic matter are included. These grasslands all act as a net C source though, with reported emissions in the region of 3.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-eq.) per year.

Read the full paper Counting carbon on agricultural peat soils (PDF)