Researchers investigating the carbon absorption capabilities of seagrass have discovered mountains of sugar beneath them.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany have reported that the seagrasses release huge quantities of sugar, largely in a sucrose form, into their soils.
The research was carried out off the Italian island opf Elba, and the amount released worldwide is estimated to be a million tonnes of sucrose, which would be enough for 32 billion cans of coke, the scientists believe. It is 80 times more than has previously been measured in marine environments.
”Such high concentrations of sugar are surprising,” said Maggie Sogin, first author of the report published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. “Normally, micro-organisms quickly consume any free sugars in their environment. It is easy to digest and full of energy. So why isn’t the sucrose consumed by the large community of microorganisms in the seagrass rhizosphere? We spent a long time trying to figure this out
”What we realised is that seagrass, like many other plants, release phenolic compounds to their sediment. Red wine, coffee and fruits are full of phenolics, and many people take them as health supplements. What is less well known is that phenolics are antimicrobials and inhibit the metabolism of most microorganisms.
“In our experiments we added phenolics isolated from seagrass to the microorganisms in the seagrass rhizosphere – and indeed, much less sucrose was consumed compared to when no phenolics were present.”
Seagrasses are abundant in many coastal regions. They are considered to be one of the most efficient absorbers of carbon dioxide - one square kilometre stores almost twice as much as forest on land, and 35 times as quickly.