Over the past century, extensive areas of northern peatlands have been drained for forestry. Today, concerns about their role as significant sources of greenhouse gases (GHG) have sparked growing interest in peatland rewetting as a climate mitigating strategy. However, empirical evidence for rewetting effects on ecosystem carbon (C) and GHG balances is still limited, particularly for minerogenic boreal peatland forests. Rewett...

Boreal peatlands provide an important carbon store, which is highly susceptible to future changes in the global climate. Predictions of climate feedbacks on the peatland carbon balance require an in‐depth understanding of how vegetation dynamics and environmental conditions jointly govern the production and decomposition of organic matter. However, detailed knowledge on the separate roles of plant functional groups (PFGs) in r...

There is a societal demand to restore drained boreal peatlands for purposes of improving water quality and biodiversity and lowering emissions of greenhouse gases. Restoration measures are costly and neither the effects of drainage nor restoration on biogeochemical processes in the peat, and in downstream environments are well understood. This study assesses how 60–100 years of drainage followed by 6–9 years of restored condit...

Aims Plant inputs are the primary organic carbon source that transforms into soil organic matter (SOM) through microbial processing. One prevailing view is that lignin plays a major role in the accumulation of SOM. This study investigated lignin decomposition using wood from different genotypes of Populus tremula as the model substrate. The genotypes naturally varied in lignin content and composition, resulting in high and low...

High latitude mires are key ecosystems in the context of climate change since they store large amounts of carbon while constituting an important natural source of methane (CH 4 ). However, while a growing number of studies have investigated methane fluxes (FCH 4 ) at the plot‐ (~1 m 2 ) and ecosystem‐scale (~0.1–0.5 km 2 ) across the boreal biome, variations of FCH 4 magnitudes and drivers at the mesoscale (i.e., 0.5–20 km 2 )...

Rewetting is considered a strategy for mitigating carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from drained peatlands, with associated climate benefits often derived by applying emission factors (EFs). However, data from rewetted sites are lacking, particularly for boreal peatland forests established on drained nutrient‐poor fens. Instead, their EFs have been developed primarily based on data from natural mires, implying similar carbon (C...

Sphagnum moss is the dominant plant genus in northern peatlands responsible for long‐term carbon accumulation. Sphagnum hosts diverse microbial communities (microbiomes), and its phytobiome (plant host + constituent microbiome + environment) plays a key role in nutrient acquisition along with carbon cycling. Climate change can modify the Sphagnum ‐associated microbiome, resulting in enhanced host growth and thermal acclimation...

Northern peatlands provide a globally important carbon (C) store. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, large areas of natural peatlands have been drained for biomass production across Fennoscandia. Today, drained peatland forests constitute a common feature of the managed boreal landscape, yet their ecosystem C balance and associated climate impact are not well understood, particularly within the nutrient‐poor bor...