RESEARCH PROJECT

Carp and Carbon: Climate Change and Ecological and Economic Benefits

KEY POINTS
  • Green house gas emissions
  • Sediment nutrient depletion
  • Altered carbon burial
Updated: May 2025

Project overview

Project start: January 2023 Ending: July 2025
Project manager: Brian Huser
Funded by: https://www.lccmr.mn.gov/

Global goals

  • 13. Climate action
  • 15. Life on land

Short summary

The objectives of this project are to determine how carp affect carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions from 18 Minnesota lakes and determine both the climate change and economic benefits of carp removal.

This project will look at how the invasive common carp (C. carpio) affects water quality, sediment nutrients, and greenhouse gas production and emission from lakes. 18 lakes, with and without carp, in Minnesota (US) are included and work involves measurement of ebulition and diffusive fluxes of GHGs, analysis of sediment pysiochemical properties, fish and macrophyte surveys, and measurement of water quality variables. The main goal is to provide analyses that give lake managers, governmental agencies, tribes, and policy makers the applied tools they can use to determine how to optimally apply carp management to infested lakes and other water bodies.

Carp on the left side, no carp on the right. Image Jown Downing
Carp on the left side, no carp on the right. Image Jown Downing

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