Mangrove forests can help to mitigate climate change by storing a significant amount of carbon (C) in soils. Planted mangrove forests have been established to combat anthropogenic threats posed by climate change. However, the efficiency of planted forests in terms of soil organic carbon (SOC) storage and dynamics relative to that of natural forests is unclear. We assessed SOC and nutrient storage, SOC sources and drivers in a natural and a planted forest in southern Thailand. Although the planted forest stored more C and nutrients than the natural forest, the early-stage planted forest was not a strong sink relative to mudflat. Both forests were predominated by allochthonous organic C and nitrogen limited, with total nitrogen being a major driver of SOC in both cases. SOC showed a significant decline along land-to-sea and depth gradients as a result of soil texture, nutrient availability, and pH in the natural forest.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: PEI SUN LOH reports financial support was provided by Asia-pacific Network for Global Change Research. CHOON WENG LEE, CHUI WEI BONG reports financial support was provided by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for the HICoE Phase II fund (HICoE IOES-2023C). If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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