Journal ArticleDOI
Increased plant productivity in Alaskan tundra as a result of experimental warming of soil and permafrost
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TLDR
The response of tundra plant communities to warming temperatures is of critical concern because permafrost ecosystems play a key role in global carbon storage, and climate-induced ecological shifts in the plant community will affect the transfer of carbon-dioxide between biological and atmospheric pools as mentioned in this paper.Abstract:
Summary
1. The response of northern tundra plant communities to warming temperatures is of critical concern because permafrost ecosystems play a key role in global carbon (C) storage, and climate-induced ecological shifts in the plant community will affect the transfer of carbon-dioxide between biological and atmospheric pools.
2. This study, which focuses on the response of tundra plant growth and phenology to experimental warming, was conducted at the Carbon in Permafrost Experimental Heating Research project, located in the northern foothills of the Alaska Range. We used snow fences coupled with spring snow removal to increase deep-soil temperatures and thaw depth (winter warming), and open-top chambers to increase summer air temperatures (summer warming).
3. Winter warming increased wintertime soil temperature (5–40 cm) by 2.3 °C, resulting in a 10% increase in growing season thaw depth. Summer warming significantly increased growing season air temperature; peak temperature differences occurred near midday when summer warming plots were approximately 1.0 °C warmer than ambient plots.
4. Changes in the soil environment as a result of winter warming treatment resulted in a 20% increase in above-ground biomass and net primary productivity (ANPP), while there was no detected summer warming effect on ecosystem-level ANPP or biomass. Both summer and winter warming extended the growing season through earlier bud break and delayed senescence, despite equivalent snow-free days across treatments. As with ANPP, winter warming increased canopy N mass by 20%, while there was no summer warming effect on canopy N.
5. The warming-mediated increase in N availability, coupled with phenological shifts, may have driven higher rates of ANPP in the winter warming plots, and the lack of ecosystem-level N and ANPP response to summer warming suggest continued N limitation in the summer warming plots.
6. Synthesis: These results highlight the role of soil and permafrost dynamics in regulating plant response to climate change and provide evidence that warming may promote greater C accumulation in tundra plant biomass. While warming temperatures are expected to enhance microbial decomposition of the large pool of organic matter stored in tundra soils and permafrost, these respiratory losses may be offset, at least in part, by warming-mediated increases in plant growth.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Plot-scale evidence of tundra vegetation change and links to recent summer warming.
Sarah C. Elmendorf,Gregory H. R. Henry,Robert D. Hollister,Robert G. Björk,Noémie Boulanger-Lapointe,Elisabeth J. Cooper,Johannes H. C. Cornelissen,Thomas A. Day,Ellen Dorrepaal,Ellen Dorrepaal,Tatiana G. Elumeeva,M.J. Gill,William A. Gould,John Harte,David S. Hik,Annika Hofgaard,D. R. Johnson,Jill F. Johnstone,Ingibjörg S. Jónsdóttir,Janet C. Jorgenson,Kari Klanderud,Julia A. Klein,Saewan Koh,Gaku Kudo,Mark J. Lara,Esther Lévesque,Borgthor Magnusson,Jeremy L. May,Joel A. Mercado-Díaz,Anders Michelsen,Ulf Molau,Isla H. Myers-Smith,Steven F. Oberbauer,Vladimir G. Onipchenko,Christian Rixen,Niels Martin Schmidt,Gaius R. Shaver,Marko J. Spasojevic,Póra Ellen Pórhallsdóttir,Anne Tolvanen,Tiffany G. Troxler,Craig E. Tweedie,Sandra Villareal,Carl Henrik Wahren,Xanthe J. Walker,Xanthe J. Walker,P. J. Webber,Jeffrey M. Welker,Sonja Wipf +48 more
TL;DR: In this paper, remote sensing data indicate that contemporary climate warming has already resulted in increased productivity and increased productivity in the tundra biome (Tundra Tundra Bi biome).
Increased snow depth affects microbial activity and nitrogen mineralization in two Arctic tundra communities - eScholarship
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used intact core incubations sampled periodically through the winter and following growing season to measure net N mineralization and nitrification in dry heath and in moist tussock tundra under ambient and experimentally increased snow depths.
Journal ArticleDOI
Long-term warming restructures Arctic tundra without changing net soil carbon storage
Seeta A. Sistla,John C. Moore,Rodney T. Simpson,Laura Gough,Gaius R. Shaver,Joshua P. Schimel +5 more
TL;DR: Warming increased plant biomass and woody dominance, indirectly increased winter soil temperature, homogenized the soil trophic structure across horizons and suppressed surface-soil-decomposer activity, but did not change total soil carbon or nitrogen stocks, thereby increasing net ecosystem carbon storage.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evidence of current impact of climate change on life: a walk from genes to the biosphere
Josep Peñuelas,Jordi Sardans,Marc Estiarte,Romà Ogaya,Jofre Carnicer,Jofre Carnicer,Marta Coll,Adrià Barbeta,Albert Rivas-Ubach,Joan Llusià,Martín F. Garbulsky,Martín F. Garbulsky,Iolanda Filella,Alistair S. Jump,Alistair S. Jump +14 more
TL;DR: The evidence of how organisms and populations are currently responding to climate change through phenotypic plasticity, genotypic evolution, changes in distribution and, in some cases, local extinction is reviewed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Field information links permafrost carbon to physical vulnerabilities of thawing
Jennifer W. Harden,Charles D. Koven,Chien-Lu Ping,Gustaf Hugelius,A. David McGuire,P. Camill,T. Jorgenson,Peter Kuhry,Gary J. Michaelson,Jonathan A. O'Donnell,Edward A. G. Schuur,Charles Tarnocai,Kristopher Johnson,Guido Grosse +13 more
TL;DR: In this article, deep soil profiles containing permafrost (Gelisols) were characterized for organic carbon (C) and total nitrogen (N) stocks to 3 m depths using the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4).
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Temperature sensitivity of soil carbon decomposition and feedbacks to climate change
TL;DR: This work has suggested that several environmental constraints obscure the intrinsic temperature sensitivity of substrate decomposition, causing lower observed ‘apparent’ temperature sensitivity, and these constraints may, themselves, be sensitive to climate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present evidence from satellite data that the photosynthetic activity of terrestrial vegetation increased from 1981 to 1991 in a manner that is suggestive of an increase in plant growth associated with a lengthening of the active growing season.
Book ChapterDOI
The Mineral Nutrition of Wild Plants Revisited: A Re-evaluation of Processes and Patterns
Rien Aerts,F. S. Chapin +1 more
TL;DR: The issues of nutrient-limited plant growth and nutrient uptake, with special emphasis on the importance of the uptake of nutrients in organic form—both by mycorrhizal and by non-mycorrhIZal plants—and the influence of symbiotic nitrogen fixation are treated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region
Charles Tarnocai,Josep G. Canadell,Edward A. G. Schuur,Peter Kuhry,Galina Mazhitova,Sergei Zimov +5 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reported a new estimate of the carbon pools in soils of the northern permafrost region, including deeper layers and pools not accounted for in previous analyses.
Journal ArticleDOI
A meta-analysis of the response of soil respiration, net nitrogen mineralization, and aboveground plant growth to experimental ecosystem warming
Lindsey E. Rustad,John Campbell,G.M. Marion,Richard J. Norby,Myron J. Mitchell,Anne E. Hartley,Johannes H. C. Cornelissen,Jessica Gurevitch +7 more
TL;DR: Meta-analysis is used to synthesize data on the response of soil respiration, net N mineralization, and aboveground plant productivity to experimental ecosystem warming at 32 research sites representing four broadly defined biomes, including high (latitude or altitude) tundra, low tundara, grassland, and forest.
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