Articles | Volume 23, issue 16
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-23-5781-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-23-5781-2026
Research article
 | 
24 Aug 2026
Research article |  | 24 Aug 2026

Soil disturbance in wetlands by feral pigs increases greenhouse gas emissions

Maria Fernanda Adame, Alex Pearse, Jack W. Hill, Swade Cristopherson, Jonathan Nadji, Jasmine Malua Hall, Jessa Thurman, Valerie Hagger, and Catherine E. Lovelock

Related authors

Soil greenhouse gas fluxes from tropical coastal wetlands and alternative agricultural land uses
Naima Iram, Emad Kavehei, Damien T. Maher, Stuart E. Bunn, Mehran Rezaei Rashti, Bahareh Shahrabi Farahani, and Maria Fernanda Adame
Biogeosciences, 18, 5085–5096, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5085-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5085-2021, 2021
Short summary

Cited articles

Adame, M., Jardine, T., Fry, B., Valdez, D., Linder, G., Nadji, J., and Bunn, S.: Estuarine crocodiles in a tropical coastal floodplain obtain nutrition from terrestrial prey, PLoS ONE, 13, 6, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197159, 2018. 
Adame, M. F., Pearse, A., Hill, J. W., Cristopherson, S., Nadji, J., Hall, J. M., Thurman, J., Hagger, V., and Lovelock, C. E.: Soil disturbance in wetlands by feral pigs increases greenhouse gas emissions, Griffith University [data set], https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/6008, 2026. 
Anderson, I. C. and Levine, J.: Relative rates of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide production by nitrifiers, denitrifiers and nitrate respirers, Appl. Environ. Microb., 51, 938–945, 1986. 
Ballari, S. A. and Barrios-García, M. N.: A review of wild boar Sus scrofa diet and factors affecting food selection in native and introduced ranges, Mammal Review, 44, 124–134, https://doi.org/10.1111/mam.12015, 2014. 
Bass, A. M., O'Grady, D., Leblanc, M., Tweed, S., Nelson, P. N., and Bird, M. I.: Carbon dioxide and methane emissions from a wet-dry tropical floodplain in Northern Australia, Wetlands, 34, 619–627, 2014. 
Download
Short summary
Invasive feral pigs are globally widespread and cause massive damage to wetlands by trampling, grubbing, and digging the soil. We investigated whether these impacts would lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions of methane and nitrous oxide, two potent greenhouse gases, were higher in sites disturbed by pigs compared to undisturbed sites. Thus, managing feral pigs could reduce soil greenhouse gas emissions.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint