Scott Winton
@rswamper.bsky.social
Swamp lover, birder, dad, Assistant professor in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz
And UCSC just released a great lay summary of the work!
📰 news.ucsc.edu/2025/04/colo...
Thanks for reading — and if you're into tropical ecology, carbon, or conservation, this one's for you. 💚
📰 news.ucsc.edu/2025/04/colo...
Thanks for reading — and if you're into tropical ecology, carbon, or conservation, this one's for you. 💚
Colombia’s peatlands could be a crucial tool to fight climate change. But first we have to find them.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Scott Winton conducted three years of extensive fieldwork to develop the first data-driven map of both newly documented and predicted peatlands across Colo...
news.ucsc.edu
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
And UCSC just released a great lay summary of the work!
📰 news.ucsc.edu/2025/04/colo...
Thanks for reading — and if you're into tropical ecology, carbon, or conservation, this one's for you. 💚
📰 news.ucsc.edu/2025/04/colo...
Thanks for reading — and if you're into tropical ecology, carbon, or conservation, this one's for you. 💚
There’s more to come: new studies on GHG fluxes, threats & conservation needs, and a deep dive into the white-sand ecosystems.
But this first paper lays the foundation: what these peatlands are and why they matter.
📖 Open access: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
But this first paper lays the foundation: what these peatlands are and why they matter.
📖 Open access: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Widespread carbon-dense peatlands in the Colombian lowlands - IOPscienceSearch
Widespread carbon-dense peatlands in the Colombian lowlands, Winton, R Scott, Benavides, Juan C, Mendoza, Edmundo, Uhde, Antje, Hastie, Adam, Honorio Coronado, Eurídice N, Hernandez Ortega, Andres Giovanny, Paukku, Stella, Mullins, Bailey, del Aguila Pasquel, Jhon, Aymard-Corredor, Gerardo A, Baker, Tim R, Draper, Freddie C, Flores Llampazo, Gerardo, Herrera, Rafael, Phillips, Oliver L, Reyna Huaymacari, José Manuel, ter Steege, Hans, Stropp, Juliana, Lawson, Ian T, Gallego-Sala, Angela V, Boom, Arnoud, Wehrli, Bernhard, Hoyt, Alison M
iopscience.iop.org
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
There’s more to come: new studies on GHG fluxes, threats & conservation needs, and a deep dive into the white-sand ecosystems.
But this first paper lays the foundation: what these peatlands are and why they matter.
📖 Open access: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
But this first paper lays the foundation: what these peatlands are and why they matter.
📖 Open access: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Also grateful for the generous support that made this work possible:
🤝 @Stanford's King Center (@KingCenterStan) & Alison Hoyt
🇨🇭 Bernhard Wehrli, @ETH_en, @EawagResearch & the Swiss National Science Foundation
🐌 My new home @UCSC
🙏🌍
🤝 @Stanford's King Center (@KingCenterStan) & Alison Hoyt
🇨🇭 Bernhard Wehrli, @ETH_en, @EawagResearch & the Swiss National Science Foundation
🐌 My new home @UCSC
🙏🌍
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Also grateful for the generous support that made this work possible:
🤝 @Stanford's King Center (@KingCenterStan) & Alison Hoyt
🇨🇭 Bernhard Wehrli, @ETH_en, @EawagResearch & the Swiss National Science Foundation
🐌 My new home @UCSC
🙏🌍
🤝 @Stanford's King Center (@KingCenterStan) & Alison Hoyt
🇨🇭 Bernhard Wehrli, @ETH_en, @EawagResearch & the Swiss National Science Foundation
🐌 My new home @UCSC
🙏🌍
Mapping was led by Antje Uhde (MPI Jena), whose JGR Biogeosciences companion paper also dropped this week — it’s the first chapter of her dissertation. Check it out:
🔗 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
🔗 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
Mapping Peatland Distribution and Quantifying Peatland Below‐Ground Carbon Stocks in Colombia's Eastern Lowlands
We mapped between 7,371 and 36,238 km2 of peat in the Eastern Colombian lowlands at a 95% confidence interval The mapped peatland extent translates to 0.6–4.22 Pg of below-ground carbon stocks in...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Mapping was led by Antje Uhde (MPI Jena), whose JGR Biogeosciences companion paper also dropped this week — it’s the first chapter of her dissertation. Check it out:
🔗 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
🔗 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
This was only possible thanks to a team of incredible collaborators. Especially the Colombian scientists:
Prof. Juan Carlos Benavides
Edmundo Mendoza
Andrés Hernández
And our local Colombian NGO partner, Fundación Horizonte Verde
Prof. Juan Carlos Benavides
Edmundo Mendoza
Andrés Hernández
And our local Colombian NGO partner, Fundación Horizonte Verde
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
This was only possible thanks to a team of incredible collaborators. Especially the Colombian scientists:
Prof. Juan Carlos Benavides
Edmundo Mendoza
Andrés Hernández
And our local Colombian NGO partner, Fundación Horizonte Verde
Prof. Juan Carlos Benavides
Edmundo Mendoza
Andrés Hernández
And our local Colombian NGO partner, Fundación Horizonte Verde
Over 4 years, we collected 130 meters of peat cores, surveyed 51 forest plots, processed 1,000+ samples, and built a custom mapping model to estimate peatland area, depth, and carbon stocks across the region.
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Over 4 years, we collected 130 meters of peat cores, surveyed 51 forest plots, processed 1,000+ samples, and built a custom mapping model to estimate peatland area, depth, and carbon stocks across the region.
And perhaps the most unexpected? White-sand peatlands in Guainía — so unusual we had to invent a new term to describe them.
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
And perhaps the most unexpected? White-sand peatlands in Guainía — so unusual we had to invent a new term to describe them.
The real breakthrough came near the town of Puerto Lleras in Meta. I was living nearby at the time, and this find opened the floodgates — soon we were locating peatlands in Guaviare, Vaupés, Caquetá, even the Llanos.
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
The real breakthrough came near the town of Puerto Lleras in Meta. I was living nearby at the time, and this find opened the floodgates — soon we were locating peatlands in Guaviare, Vaupés, Caquetá, even the Llanos.
But models hinted they should exist. And they were sort of right — peatlands are widespread — but the models were also terrible at pinpointing them. The first few months, we mostly found mineral soils and disappointment.
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
But models hinted they should exist. And they were sort of right — peatlands are widespread — but the models were also terrible at pinpointing them. The first few months, we mostly found mineral soils and disappointment.
When I started this project, almost nothing had been documented about Colombia’s lowland peatlands. Conflict had made access to remote areas risky. And with so much biodiversity to study, carbon-rich wetlands weren’t top of the list for field researchers.
April 16, 2025 at 4:20 PM
When I started this project, almost nothing had been documented about Colombia’s lowland peatlands. Conflict had made access to remote areas risky. And with so much biodiversity to study, carbon-rich wetlands weren’t top of the list for field researchers.