https://www.nextgenscience.org/pe/hs-ls2-7-ecosystems-interactions-energy-and-dynamics

HS-LS2-7 Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

This paper investigates a means to optimize carbon storage potential through knowledge of biodiversity mechanics and the idea of sinking carbon into plant life in order to lower atmospheric CO2.

https://www.nextgenscience.org/pe/ms-ls1-7-molecules-organisms-structures-and-processes

MS-LS1-7 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes

It is important to understand the nature of the carbon cycle, and how carbon is utilized within organisms as biomass.

Teacher's Resource:

The removal of atmospheric CO2 reduces pollution, but it comes at the cost of creating plant conservation sites to store the carbon from CO2.

This paper focuses upon the utilization of biodiversity in order to to increase carbon storage for economic purposes. By increasing the amount of carbon that can be stored in a hectacre of grassland, it will become much cheaper to reduce pollution via carbon sinks.

Hungate et. al performed their investigations through past experiments that compared the carbon uptakes of grasslands of varying biodiversity over a period of 50 years.

Findings support a positive correlation between biodiversity and carbon uptake levels. Therefore, increasing biodiversity in carbon sinks will increase efficiency and will make carbon sequestration more affordable as a result.

While this paper shows a 'soft cap' (decreasing marginal effects) on these carbon uptake gains from biodiversity, this effect might be proven to have synergy with other efforts to improve carbon sequestration in the future.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why does adding to the biodiversity not linearly add to the carbon uptake rates?

2. Is the resource competition (resulting from biodiversity) limiting or benefiting the flora in carbon sequestration?

3. What is the 'sweet spot' of biodiversity that optimizes highest carbon storage per dollar spent?

4. Do the results of this study have qualities that could be generalized to a other grasslands or possibly even other types of habitat? SC