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Raghab Ray

Origin, transport and fate of total organic CARbon along the Mangrove dominAted Coastal forest of French Guiana (CARMAC)


PostDoctoral Fellow: Dr. Raghab Ray
Scientific Sponsors: Dr. Emma Michaud (LEMAR), Dr. Gerard Thouzeau (LEMAR), Dr. Vincent Vantrepotte  (LOG UMR-8187).
LabexMER Research Axis 6: Evolution of marine habitats and adaptation of populations.

Among the coastal habitats, mangroves are the biologically diversified and most carbon rich ecosystems accounting approx. 15 Pg C in the live biomass and soil and sequestering carbon at a fast rate. Yet the definite contribution and role of mangroves towards net carbon sink is still unknown. My previous work in the Indian Sundarbans, world’s largest mangrove delta, focused on the carbon storage and exchange fluxes along the land-air-water continuum. The Sundarbans was potentially found to act as sink of CO2 however faster turnover and effective soil leaching reduced the carbon stock capacity in compare to other mangroves e.g in French Guiana. Now my current research is dealing with similar approach of carbon dynamics in the highly productive French Guaina (FG) mangroves.

The main pinpoint in CARMAC project, is to investigate the sources and transport of total carbon (DOC, DIC, POC) in the estuarine, mudbank and vegetative zone in FG mangroves. Physical and biological effect on carbon storage and export in spatio-temporal scale will be studied also. Final approach is to construct a mass budget to understand total source/sink in the FG and accordingly compare results with the Sundarbans to check overall importance of mangroves in global carbon sequestration program.

 

 

Figure1 RayFigure 1 : Mangroves along the Saptamukhi estuary during high tide, Indian Sundarbans (pic courtesy R. Ray

 

 

 

Figure2 RayFigure 2 : Benthic flux measurement in the Sinnamary estuarine mudbank, French Guiana (pic taken by BIOMANGO group of Emma Michaud)

 

 

 

Figure3 Ray Figure 3 : Simplified mass based model with non-proportionality between reservoir carbon contents and fluxes (conceived by R. Ray)

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