Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research

About: Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research is a facility organization based out in Birmensdorf, Switzerland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Climate change & Soil water. The organization has 1256 authors who have published 3222 publications receiving 161639 citations. The organization is also known as: WSL.

Biotic plant–soil feedbacks across temporal scales

Abstract: 1. Plant effects on soil biota can result in feedbacks affecting plant performance, with consequences for plant community and ecosystem dynamics on short and long time-scales. In addition, the strength and direction of plant-soil feedbacks depend on temporal shifts in abiotic environmental conditions. 2. We synthesize current knowledge on temporal aspects of plant-soil feedbacks and present new ideas to better understand and predict the effects of plant-soil feedbacks on community and ecosystem properties across temporal scales. 3. Explaining short-term temporal feedback dynamics requires us to better understand mechanistic linkages between plants, soil organisms and locally available resources. On the other hand, we need to refine our understanding of the context-dependency of plant-soil feedbacks, as the strength and direction of feedback interactions are influenced by 'external' temporal ecosystem dynamics, such as variation in soil resource availability after disturbance or during succession. 4. Synthesis. Based on our synthesis of temporal aspects of plant-soil feedbacks, we suggest three main avenues for future research: (i) how plant-soil feedbacks changes with ontogeny, (ii) how plant and soil organism traits drive temporal variation in plant-soil feedbacks and (iii) how environmental changes across temporal scales alter the strength and direction of plant-soil feedbacks.

Long‐term study of root biomass in a biodiversity experiment reveals shifts in diversity effects over time

Abstract: Biodiversity experiments generally report a positive effect of plant biodiversity on aboveground biomass (overyielding), which typically increases with time. Various studies also found overyielding for belowground plant biomass, but this has never been measured over time. Also, potential underlying mechanisms have remained unclear. Differentiation in rooting patterns among plant species and plant functional groups has been proposed as a main driver of the observed biodiversity effect on belowground biomass, leading to more efficient belowground resource use with increasing diversity, but so far there is little evidence to support this. We analyzed standing root biomass and its distribution over the soil profile, along a 1–16 species richness gradient over eight years in the Jena Experiment in Germany, and compared belowground to aboveground overyielding. In our long-term dataset, total root biomass increased with increasing species richness but this effect was only apparent after four years. The increasingly positive relationship between species richness and root biomass, explaining 12% of overall variation and up to 28% in the last year of our study, was mainly due to decreasing root biomass at low diversity over time. Functional group composition strongly affected total standing root biomass, explaining 44% of variation, with grasses and legumes having strong overall positive and negative effects, respectively. Functional group richness or interactions between functional group presences did not strongly contribute to overyielding. We found no support for the hypothesis that vertical root differentiation increases with species richness, with functional group richness or composition. Other explanations, such as stronger negative plant–soil feedbacks in low-diverse plant communities on standing root biomass and vertical distribution should be considered.

Manifestations and mechanisms of the Karakoram glacier Anomaly

Abstract: Global-scale glacier shrinkage is one of the most prominent signs of ongoing climatic change. However, important differences in glacier response exist at the regional scale, and evidence has accumulated that one particular region stands out: the Karakoram. In the past two decades, the region has shown balanced to slightly positive glacier budgets, an increase in glacier ice flow speeds, stable to partially advancing glacier termini and widespread glacier surge activity. This is in stark contrast to the rest of High Mountain Asia, where glacier retreat and slowdown dominate, and glacier surging is largely absent. Termed the Karakoram Anomaly, recent observations show that the anomalous glacier behaviour partially extends to the nearby Western Kun Lun and Pamir. Several complementary explanations have now been presented for the Anomaly’s deeper causes, but our understanding is far from complete. Whether the Anomaly will continue to exist in the coming decades remains unclear, but its long-term persistence seems unlikely in light of the considerable warming anticipated by current projections of future climate. Glaciers in the Karakoram region, with their balanced or slightly positive mass balance, stand out from global glacier shrinkage, but this anomaly is not expected to persist in the long term, according to an overview of the possible explanations.