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Mangroves are one of the most carbon‐dense forests on the Earth and have been highlighted as key ecosystems for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Hundreds of studies have investigated how mangroves fix, transform, store, and export carbon. Here, we review and synthesize the previously known and emerging carbon pathways in mangroves, including gains (woody biomass accumulation, deadwood accumulation, soil carbon sequestration, root and litterfall production), transformations (food web transfer through herbivory, decomposition), and losses (respiration as CO2 and CH4, litterfall export, particulate and dissolved carbon export). We then review the technologies available to measure carbon fluxes in mangroves, their potential, and their limitations. We also synthesize and compare mangrove net ecosystem productivity (NEP) with terrestrial forests. Finally, we update global estimates of carbon fluxes with the most current values of fluxes and global mangrove area. We found that the contributions of recently investigated fluxes, such as soil respiration as CH4, are minor (<1 Tg C year−1), while the contributions of deadwood accumulation, herbivory, and lateral export are significant (>35 Tg C year−1). Dissolved inorganic carbon exports are an order of magnitude higher than the other processes investigated and were highly variable, highlighting the need for further studies. Gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) per area of mangroves were within the same order of magnitude as terrestrial forests. However, ER/GPP was lower in mangroves, explaining their higher carbon sequestration. We estimate the global mean mangrove NEP of 109.1 Tg C year−1 (7.4 Mg C ha−1 year−1) or through a budget balance, accounting for lateral losses, a global mean of 66.6 Tg C year−1 (4.5 Mg C ha−1 year−1). Overall, mangroves are highly productive, and despite losses due to respiration and tidal exchange, they are significant carbon sinks.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) is fixed by mangrove vegetation and stored in its biomass and sediments. Part of the sediment carbon can be exported to coastal waters via tidally driven pore-water exchange. Here, we quantify pore water-derived dissolved CO₂ export using in situ, high-resolution observations of 222Rn and CO₂ over a spring-neap tidal cycle in a mangrove-fringed estuary (Coffs Creek, Australia). 222Rn-derived pore-water exchange rates were 11.5–34.9 cm d−1 (23.0 ± 6.7) over 30 tidal cycles. Pore-water exchange released CO₂ from intertidal sediment at rates of 61–213 (136 ± 43) mmol m−2 d−1. This is equivalent to 94% of the total CO₂ input into the estuary and approximately two times of the water-atmosphere CO₂ emission. These observations reveal that tidal pumping is a major regulator of both mangrove pore-water exchange and associated dissolved CO₂ export to the ocean. Combining our estimates with literature data, a first-order global pore water-derived dissolved CO₂ export from mangroves was estimated to be 83 ± 50 Tg C yr−1. This is higher than an earlier estimates of global mangrove CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere (34.1 ± 5.4 Tg C yr−1) and carbon burial in sediments (18.4–34.4 Tg C yr−1), implying that pore water-derived CO₂ escapes to the atmosphere within and beyond mangrove waters. Overall, CO₂-rich pore water seems to be a widespread, important pathway of CO₂ into mangrove-dominated estuaries and should be considered in mangrove carbon assessments in the context of global climate change and blue carbon.

Correction to: Nature Communicationshttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44037-w, published online 11 December 2023 The original version of the Supplementary Information associated with this Article cited Santos et al. (unpublished) for the sites Johnstone, Burdekin and Fitzroy in Supplementary Table 1. This has been changed to Rosentreter & Eyre (2024). The HTML has been updated to include a corrected version of the Supplementary Information.

We report the routing of quantum light emitted by self-assembled InGaAs quantum dots (QDs) into the optical modes of a GaAs ridge waveguide and its efficient detection on-chip via evanescent coupling to NbN superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SSPDs). The waveguide coupled SSPDs primarily detect QD luminescence, with scattered photons from the excitation laser onto the proximal detector being negligible by comparison. The SSPD detection efficiency from the evanescently coupled waveguide modes is shown to be two orders of magnitude larger when compared with operation under normal incidence illumination, due to the much longer optical interaction length. Furthermore, in-situ time resolved measurements performed using the integrated detector show an average QD spontaneous emission lifetime of 0.95 ns, measured with a timing jitter of only 72 ps. The performance metrics of the SSPD integrated directly onto GaAs nano-photonic hardware confirms the strong potential for on-chip few-photon quantum optics using such semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems.

Semiconductor quantum photonic circuits can be used to efficiently generate, manipulate, route and exploit nonclassical states of light for distributed photon-based quantum information technologies. In this article, we review our recent achievements on the growth, nanofabrication and integration of high-quality, superconducting niobium nitride thin films on optically active, semiconducting GaAs substrates and their patterning to realize highly efficient and ultra-fast superconducting detectors on semiconductor nanomaterials containing quantum dots. Our state-of-the-art detectors reach external detection quantum efficiencies up to 20 % for ~4 nm thin films and single-photon timing resolutions <72 ps. We discuss the integration of such detectors into quantum dot-loaded, semiconductor ridge waveguides, resulting in the on-chip, time-resolved detection of quantum dot luminescence. Furthermore, a prototype quantum optical circuit is demonstrated that enabled the on-chip generation of resonance fluorescence from an individual InGaAs quantum dot, with a linewidth <15 μeV displaced by 1 mm from the superconducting detector on the very same semiconductor chip. Thus, all key components required for prototype quantum photonic circuits with sources, optical components and detectors on the same chip are reported.

The issue of quantum mechanical coupling between a semiconductor quantum dot and a quantum well is studied in two families of GaAs- and InP- based structures at cryogenic temperatures. It is shown that by tuning the quantum well parameters one can strongly disturb the 0D-character of the coupled system ground state, initially located in a dot. The out-coupling of either an electron or a hole state from the quantum dot confining potential is viewed by a significant elongation of the photoluminescence decay time constant. Band structure calculations show that in the GaAs-based coupled system at its ground state a hole remains isolated in the dot, whereas an electron gets delocalized towards the quantum well. The opposite picture is built for the ground state of a coupled system based on InP.

Long-term flux measurement sites are often characterized by a heterogeneous terrain, which disagrees with the fundamental theoretical assumptions for eddy-covariance measurements. An evaluation procedure to assess the influence of terrain heterogeneity on the data quality has been developed by Gockede et al. (2004), which combines existing quality assessment tools for flux measurements with analytic footprint modeling. In addition to micrometeorological input data, this approach requires information defining the land use structure and the roughness of the surrounding terrain. The aim of this study was to improve the footprint based site evaluation approach by using high-resolution land use maps derived by Landsat ETM+ and ASTER satellite data. The influence of the grid resolution of the maps on the results was examined, and four different roughness length classification schemes were tested. Due to numerical instabilities of the analytic footprint routine, as an additional footprint model a Lagrangian stochastic footprint routine (Rannik et al., 2003) was employed. Application of the approach on two German FLUXNET sites revealed only weak influence of the characteristics of the land use data when the land use structure was homogeneous. For a more heterogeneous site, use of the more detailed land use maps derived by remote sensing methods resulted in distinct differences indicating the potential of remote sensing for improving the flux measurement site evaluation. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

We demonstrate that optical excitation of InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded directly in an InP matrix can be mediated via states in a quaternary compound constituting an InP/InGaAlAs bottom distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) and native defects in the InP matrix. It does not only change the carrier relaxation in the structure but could also lead to the imbalanced occupation of QDs with charge carriers, because the band structure favors the transfer of holes. Thermal activation of carrier transfer can be observed as an increase in the emission intensity versus temperature for excitation powers below saturation on the level of both an inhomogeneously broadened QD ensemble and single QD transitions. That increase in the QD emission is accompanied by a decrease in the emission from the InGaAlAs layer at low temperatures. Finally, carrier transfer between the InGaAlAs layer of the DBR and the InAs/InP QDs is directly proven by the photoluminescence excitation spectrum of the QD ensemble. The reported carrier transfer can increase the relaxation time of carriers into the QDs and thus be detrimental to the coherence properties of single and entangled photons. It is important to take it into account while designing QD-based devices.