UVEG technicians have travelled to the Malladas de La Albufera to estimate the effect of mowing on the carbon balance in this wetland.
Once the experimental micro-plots have been delimited, an initial measurement of the carbon balance is carried out, which is compared with those obtained one month later after mowing in these plots, in order to find out what effect this vegetation management action has on the carbon balance in this wetland. Six plots are defined for each action, three control plots and three plots where the actions are carried out. During the analysis, samples of different types (water, sediments, etc.) are taken to measure the evolution of biogeochemical processes (carbon, methane, CO2 production, etc.), as well as the evolution of water and soil microbial communities, primary producers and abiotic parameters of water and sediments.
The bottles are placed in the substrate to measure primary production. In parallel, transparent bottles are used to measure photosynthesis and respiration and opaque bottles are used to measure only respiration in order to calculate the primary production of both soil microorganisms and plankton.
The same process will be used to analyse the different vegetation management actions in addition to mowing, such as felling or stripping, and to check which is the most optimal in terms of carbon balance.
