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<p>Carbon sustains life, whereas mercury is a global toxin, yet their cycling in forests appears to be intimately linked. Here we show, using elemental stoichiometry, carbon and mercury isotopes and a global forest synthesis, that forests simultaneously couple and decouple mercury from carbon along contrasting ecosystem continua. Mercury/carbon ratios remain tightly conserved (0.5–0.9 × 10<sup>−6</sup>) along the aqueous-phase continuum, indicating proportional mercury transport with dissolved organic carbon. In comparison, mercury/carbon ratios increase by nearly three orders of magnitude from the atmosphere to soils (0.007–3.6 × 10<sup>−6</sup>) along the solid-phase continuum, reflecting progressive mercury enrichment during litter and soil organic matter decomposition. Standing litter acts concurrently as a net carbon source and mercury sink, whereas biomass regulates coupled carbon and mercury storage and litterfall deposition. These contrasting carbon-mercury trajectories reveal how forests both retain and redistribute atmospheric mercury and provide a conceptual framework for understanding terrestrial mercury cycling under environmental change.</p>

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Coupled and decoupled carbon-mercury dynamics across forest ecosystem continua

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月29日

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  • Chaoyue Chen,
  • Jen-How Huang,
  • Xuewu Fu,
  • Stefan Osterwalder,
  • Kai Li,
  • Björn Berg,
  • Xun Wang,
  • Wei Yuan,
  • Guangyi Sun,
  • Hui Zhang,
  • Achilleas Psomas,
  • Peter Waldner,
  • Nina Buchmann,
  • Christine Alewell,
  • Xinbin Feng

摘要

Carbon sustains life, whereas mercury is a global toxin, yet their cycling in forests appears to be intimately linked. Here we show, using elemental stoichiometry, carbon and mercury isotopes and a global forest synthesis, that forests simultaneously couple and decouple mercury from carbon along contrasting ecosystem continua. Mercury/carbon ratios remain tightly conserved (0.5–0.9 × 10−6) along the aqueous-phase continuum, indicating proportional mercury transport with dissolved organic carbon. In comparison, mercury/carbon ratios increase by nearly three orders of magnitude from the atmosphere to soils (0.007–3.6 × 10−6) along the solid-phase continuum, reflecting progressive mercury enrichment during litter and soil organic matter decomposition. Standing litter acts concurrently as a net carbon source and mercury sink, whereas biomass regulates coupled carbon and mercury storage and litterfall deposition. These contrasting carbon-mercury trajectories reveal how forests both retain and redistribute atmospheric mercury and provide a conceptual framework for understanding terrestrial mercury cycling under environmental change.