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Peatlands of the central Congo Basin have accumulated carbon over millennia. They currently store some 29 billion tonnes of carbon in peat. However, our understanding of the controls on peat carbon accumulation and loss and the vulnerability of this stored carbon to climate change is in its infancy. Here we present a new model of tropical peatland development, DigiBog_Congo, that we use to simulate peat carbon accumulation and loss in a rain-fed interfluvial peatland that began forming ~20,000 calendar years Before Present (cal. yr BP, where 'present' is 1950 CE). Overall, the simulated age-depth curve is in good agreement with palaeoenvironmental reconstructions derived from a peat core at the same location as our model simulation. We find two key controls on long-term peat accumulation: water at the peat surface (surface wetness) and the very slow anoxic decay of recalcitrant material. Our main simulation shows that between the Late Glacial and early Holocene there were several multidecadal periods where net peat and carbon gain alternated with net loss. Later, a climatic dry phase beginning ~5200 cal. yr BP caused the peatland to become a long-term carbon source from ~3975 to 900 cal. yr BP. Peat as old as ~7000 cal. yr BP was decomposed before the peatland's surface became wetter again, suggesting that changes in rainfall alone were sufficient to cause a catastrophic loss of peat carbon lasting thousands of years. During this time, 6.4 m of the column of peat was lost, resulting in 57% of the simulated carbon stock being released. Our study provides an approach to understanding the future impact of climate change and potential land-use change on this vulnerable store of carbon., (© 2023 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The world's largest tropical peatland lies in the central Congo Basin. Raphia laurentii De Wild, the most abundant palm in these peatlands, forms dominant to mono-dominant stands across approximately 45% of the peatland area. R. laurentii is a trunkless palm with fronds up to 20 m long. Owing to its morphology, there is currently no allometric equation which can be applied to R. laurentii. Therefore it is currently excluded from aboveground biomass (AGB) estimates for the Congo Basin peatlands. Here we develop allometric equations for R. laurentii, by destructively sampling 90 individuals in a peat swamp forest, in the Republic of the Congo. Prior to destructive sampling, stem base diameter, petiole mean diameter, the sum of petiole diameters, total palm height, and number of palm fronds were measured. After destructive sampling, each individual was separated into stem, sheath, petiole, rachis, and leaflet categories, then dried and weighed. We found that palm fronds represented at least 77% of the total AGB in R. laurentii and that the sum of petiole diameters was the best single predictor variable of AGB. The best overall allometric equation, however, combined the sum of petiole diameters (SDp), total palm height (H), and tissue density (TD): AGB = Exp(-2.691 + 1.425 × ln(SDp) + 0.695 × ln(H) + 0.395 × ln(TD)). We applied one of our allometric equations to data from two nearby 1-hectare forest plots, one dominated by R. laurentii, where R. laurentii accounted for 41% of the total forest AGB (with hardwood tree AGB estimated using the Chave et al. 2014 allometric equation), and one dominated by hardwood species, where R. laurentii accounted for 8% of total AGB. Across the entire region we estimate that R. laurentii stores around 2 million tonnes of carbon aboveground. The inclusion of R. laurentii in AGB estimates, will drastically improve overall AGB, and therefore carbon stock estimates for the Congo Basin peatlands., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Bocko et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The forested swamps of the central Congo Basin store approximately 30 billion metric tonnes of carbon in peat 1,2 . Little is known about the vulnerability of these carbon stocks. Here we investigate this vulnerability using peat cores from a large interfluvial basin in the Republic of the Congo and palaeoenvironmental methods. We find that peat accumulation began at least at 17,500 calibrated years before present (cal. yr BP; taken as AD 1950). Our data show that the peat that accumulated between around 7,500 to around 2,000 cal. yr BP is much more decomposed compared with older and younger peat. Hydrogen isotopes of plant waxes indicate a drying trend, starting at approximately 5,000 cal. yr BP and culminating at approximately 2,000 cal. yr BP, coeval with a decline in dominant swamp forest taxa. The data imply that the drying climate probably resulted in a regional drop in the water table, which triggered peat decomposition, including the loss of peat carbon accumulated prior to the onset of the drier conditions. After approximately 2,000 cal. yr BP, our data show that the drying trend ceased, hydrologic conditions stabilized and peat accumulation resumed. This reversible accumulation-loss-accumulation pattern is consistent with other peat cores across the region, indicating that the carbon stocks of the central Congo peatlands may lie close to a climatically driven drought threshold. Further research should quantify the combination of peatland threshold behaviour and droughts driven by anthropogenic carbon emissions that may trigger this positive carbon cycle feedback in the Earth system., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)