Higher Food Yields and Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Aquaculture Ponds with High-Stalk Rice Planted
Fengbo Li, Haoyu Qian, Tong Yang, Mengjie Wang, Fuping Fang, Yu Jiang, Dianxing Wu, Ning Zhang, Jinfei Feng
Abstract
Aquaculture ponds are an important artificial aquatic system for global food fish production but also are a hot spot of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The GHG mitigation strategy and the underlying mechanism for aquaculture ponds are still poorly understood. In this study, we conducted a 2 year field experiment to determine the effects of planting high-stalk rice (an artificially bred emergent plant for ponds) on GHG emissions from aquaculture ponds. Our results showed that planting high-stalk rice reduced CH 4 emission by 64.4% and N 2 O emission by 76.2% over 2 years. Planting high-stalk rice significantly increased the content of O 2 and the abundance of <i>pmo</i>A in the sediment, thus prompting CH 4 oxidation in the ponds. The reduction of N 2 O emission from ponds was attributed to the decreased inorganic nitrogen, <i>amoA-B</i> and <i>nir</i>S in the sediment induced by rice. Furthermore, high-stalk rice culture in the pond increased shrimp yields and gained rice yields, resulting in a significant reduction of yield-scaled global warming potential. Our findings suggest that breeding appropriate emergent aquatic plants is a potential pathway to mitigate GHG emission from aquaculture ponds with more food yields and economic benefits.