The carbon budget of continents is strongly influenced by overlooked lake littoral zones

The carbon budget of continents is strongly influenced by overlooked lake littoral zones | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article The carbon budget of continents is strongly influenced by overlooked lake littoral zones Charlotte Grasset, Jorrit Mesman, Lars Tranvik, Roxane Maranger, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4456108/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 04 Aug, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Geoscience → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract In the littoral zone, at the land-water interface of lakes and running waters, the areal productivity of plants rivals that of rain forests, resulting in a potentially very high carbon (C) turnover. While tidal wetlands at the land-ocean interface are now included in global C budgets, littoral zones of inland waters are currently not accounted for. This is remarkable given that the total shoreline of inland waters is more than 20 times longer than that of the global ocean. Here we argue that ignoring littoral C turnover in inland waters potentially results in biased estimates of continental C cycling. By including for the first time the turnover of C fixed by aquatic plants in the littoral, we show that the estimated global C balance of lakes may reverse from a net C source to a net C sink. In addition, a large part of the C outgassed in the pelagic zone might originate from the littoral, implying that previous estimates of terrestrial C inputs to inland waters were too high. We argue that the quantification and modeling of littoral C fluxes is essential to more accurately estimate the feedbacks between the continents and climate. Earth and environmental sciences/Biogeochemistry/Carbon cycle Earth and environmental sciences/Limnology Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SIlittoralzonesandCbudgets.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 04 Aug, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Geoscience → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4456108","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":308766378,"identity":"4630881c-459e-4c20-8e98-fa4fec174230","order_by":0,"name":"Charlotte 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