Assessing the impacts of human stressors on freshwater carbon cycling – Implications on CO2 emission and biodiversity conservation in Hong Kong

Dr Baker, David Michael   (Principal Investigator (PI))

Dr Liew Jia Huan   (Collaborator)

Professor Leung Kenneth Mei Yee   (Co-Investigator)

30

2020-09-28

1299780

Assessing the impacts of human stressors on freshwater carbon cycling – Implications on CO2 emission and biodiversity conservation in Hong Kong

biodiversity conservation, CO2 emission, freshwater carbon cycling, Hong Kong, human stressors

Environmental Research

Physical Sciences (P)

ECF Project 86/2019

Environment and Conservation Fund

2019

On-going

Organic carbon cycles are a key component of all freshwater ecosystems. Recent evidence suggests that human disruption of freshwater carbon cycles can result in aggravated carbon emissions and declines in biological diversity although the exact mechanisms remain unclear. We propose to assess both phenomena by testing two hypotheses. First, we will determine if human disturbance in river catchments unbalance natural carbon cycles by altering its microbial composition. We postulate further, that this will change rates of organic carbon processing, and thus affect carbon emission rates (e.g., CO2 release to the atmosphere). Second, we propose to assess the impacts of human-disrupted carbon cycles on river biodiversity. We postulate that impacted carbon cycles would alter resource availability (via primary production), resulting in resource limitations in sensitive/vulnerable freshwater species. To this end, we will quantify organic carbon cycles and associated freshwater micro- and macro- diversity across a human disturbance gradient. Empirical data collected from this project will be used to construct predictive models in the public domain (in open access publications), contributing to BSAP’s goals of addressing key knowledge gaps in ecosystem functions, mitigating anthropogenic climate change, and managing ecologically important natural streams and rivers.