| 1. |
- Abbott, Benjamin W., et al.
(författare)
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Biomass offsets little or none of permafrost carbon release from soils, streams, and wildfire : an expert assessment
- 2016
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 11:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As the permafrost region warms, its large organic carbon pool will be increasingly vulnerable to decomposition, combustion, and hydrologic export. Models predict that some portion of this release will be offset by increased production of Arctic and boreal biomass; however, the lack of robust estimates of net carbon balance increases the risk of further overshooting international emissions targets. Precise empirical or model-based assessments of the critical factors driving carbon balance are unlikely in the near future, so to address this gap, we present estimates from 98 permafrost-region experts of the response of biomass, wildfire, and hydrologic carbon flux to climate change. Results suggest that contrary to model projections, total permafrost-region biomass could decrease due to water stress and disturbance, factors that are not adequately incorporated in current models. Assessments indicate that end-of-the-century organic carbon release from Arctic rivers and collapsing coastlines could increase by 75% while carbon loss via burning could increase four-fold. Experts identified water balance, shifts in vegetation community, and permafrost degradation as the key sources of uncertainty in predicting future system response. In combination with previous findings, results suggest the permafrost region will become a carbon source to the atmosphere by 2100 regardless of warming scenario but that 65%-85% of permafrost carbon release can still be avoided if human emissions are actively reduced.
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| 2. |
- Barthelemy, Hélène, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Defoliation of a grass is mediated by the positive effect of dung deposition, moss removal and enhanced soil nutrient contents : results from a reindeer grazing simulation experiment
- 2019
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Ingår i: Oikos. - : Wiley. - 0030-1299 .- 1600-0706. ; 128:10, s. 1515-1524
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Herbivory is one of the key drivers shaping plant community dynamics. Herbivores can strongly influence plant productivity directly through defoliation and the return of nutrients in the form of dung and urine, but also indirectly by reducing the abundance of neighbouring plants and inducing changes in soil processes. However, the relative importance of these processes is poorly understood. We, therefore, established a common garden experiment to study plant responses to defoliation, dung addition, moss cover, and the soil legacy of reindeer grazing. We used an arctic tundra grazed by reindeer as our study system, and Festuca ovina, a common grazing-tolerant grass species as the model species. The soil legacy of reindeer grazing had the strongest effect on plants, and resulted in higher growth in soils originating from previously heavily-grazed sites. Defoliation also had a strong effect and reduced shoot and root growth and nutrient uptake. Plants did not fully compensate for the tissue lost due to defoliation, even when nutrient availability was high. In contrast, defoliation enhanced plant nitrogen concentrations. Dung addition increased plant production, nitrogen concentrations and nutrient uptake, although the effect was fairly small. Mosses also had a positive effect on aboveground plant production as long as the plants were not defoliated. The presence of a thick moss layer reduced plant growth following defoliation. This study demonstrates that grasses, even though they suffer from defoliation, can tolerate high densities of herbivores when all aspects of herbivores on ecosystems are taken into account. Our results further show that the positive effect of herbivores on plant growth via changes in soil properties is essential for plants to cope with a high grazing pressure. The strong effect of the soil legacy of reindeer grazing reveals that herbivores can have long-lasting effects on plant productivity and ecosystem functioning after grazing has ceased.
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| 3. |
- Barthelemy, Hélène, 1986-
(författare)
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Herbivores influence nutrient cycling and plant nutrient uptake : insights from tundra ecosystems
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Reindeer appear to have strong positive effects on plant productivity and nutrient cycling in strongly nutrient-limited ecosystems. While the direct effects of grazing on vegetation composition have been intensively studied, much less is known about the indirect effect of grazing on plant-soil interactions. This thesis investigated the indirect effects of ungulate grazing on arctic plant communities via soil nutrient availability and plant nutrient uptake.At high density, the deposition of dung alone increased plant productivity both in nutrient rich and nutrient poor tundra habitats without causing major changes in soil possesses. Plant community responses to dung addition was slow, with a delay of at least some years. By contrast, a 15N-urea tracer study revealed that nutrients from reindeer urine could be rapidly incorporated into arctic plant tissues. Soil and microbial N pools only sequestered small proportions of the tracer. This thesis therefore suggests a strong effect of dung and urine on plant productivity by directly providing nutrient-rich resources, rather than by stimulating soil microbial activities, N mineralization and ultimately increasing soil nutrient availability. Further, defoliation alone did not induce compensatory growth, but resulted in plants with higher nutrient contents. This grazing-induced increase in plant quality could drive the high N cycling in arctic secondary grasslands by providing litter of a better quality to the belowground system and thus increase organic matter decomposition and enhance soil nutrient availability. Finally, a 15N natural abundance study revealed that intense reindeer grazing influences how plants are taking up their nutrients and thus decreased plant N partitioning among coexisting plant species.Taken together these results demonstrate the central role of dung and urine and grazing-induced changes in plant quality for plant productivity. Soil nutrient concentrations alone do not reveal nutrient availability for plants since reindeer have a strong influence on how plants are taking up their nutrients. This thesis highlights that both direct and indirect effects of reindeer grazing are strong determinants of tundra ecosystem functioning. Therefore, their complex influence on the aboveground and belowground linkages should be integrated in future work on tundra ecosystem N dynamic.
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| 4. |
- Blume-Werry, Gesche, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Dwelling in the deep – strongly increased root growth and rooting depth enhance plant interactions with thawing permafrost soil
- 2019
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Ingår i: New Phytologist. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0028-646X .- 1469-8137. ; 223:3, s. 1328-1339
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate‐warming‐induced permafrost thaw exposes large amounts of carbon and nitrogen in soil at considerable depths, below the seasonally thawing active layer. The extent to which plant roots can reach and interact with these hitherto detached, deep carbon and nitrogen stores remains unknown.We aimed to quantify how permafrost thaw affects root dynamics across soil depths and plant functional types compared with above‐ground abundance, and potential consequences for plant–soil interactions.A decade of experimental permafrost thaw strongly increased total root length and growth in the active layer, and deep roots invaded the newly thawed permafrost underneath. Root litter input to soil across all depths was 10 times greater with permafrost thaw. Root growth timing was unaffected by experimental permafrost thaw but peaked later in deeper soil, reflecting the seasonally receding thaw front. Deep‐rooting species could sequester 15N added at the base of the ambient active layer in October, which was after root growth had ceased.Deep soil organic matter that has long been locked up in permafrost is thus no longer detached from plant processes upon thaw. Whether via nutrient uptake, carbon storage, or rhizosphere priming, plant root interactions with thawing permafrost soils may feed back on our climate both positively and negatively.
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| 5. |
- De Long, Jonathan, et al.
(författare)
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Contrasting Responses of Soil Microbial and Nematode Communities to Warming and Plant Functional Group Removal Across a Post-fire Boreal Forest Successional Gradient
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecosystems (New York. Print). - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1432-9840 .- 1435-0629. ; 19:2, s. 339-355
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global warming is causing increases in surface temperatures and has the potential to influence the structure of soil microbial and faunal communities. However, little is known about how warming interacts with other ecosystem drivers, such as plant functional groups or changes associated with succession, to affect the soil community and thereby alter ecosystem functioning. We investigated how experimental warming and the removal of plant functional groups along a post-fire boreal forest successional gradient impacted soil microbial and nematode communities. Our results showed that warming altered soil microbial communities and favored bacterial-based microbial communities, but these effects were mediated by mosses and shrubs, and often varied with successional stage. Meanwhile, the nematode community was generally unaffected by warming and was positively affected by the presence of mosses and shrubs, with these effects mostly independent of successional stage. These results highlight that different groups of soil organisms may respond dissimilarly to interactions between warming and changes to plant functional groups, with likely consequences for ecosystem functioning that may vary with successional stage. Due to the ubiquitous presence of shrubs and mosses in boreal forests, the effects observed in this study are likely to be significant over a large proportion of the terrestrial land surface. Our results demonstrate that it is crucial to consider interactive effects between warming, plant functional groups, and successional stage when predicting soil community responses to global climate change in forested ecosystems.
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| 6. |
- De Long, Jonathan, et al.
(författare)
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Understory plant functional groups and litter species identity are stronger drivers of litter decomposition than warming along a boreal forest post-fire successional gradient
- 2016
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Ingår i: Soil Biology and Biochemistry. - : Elsevier BV. - 0038-0717 .- 1879-3428. ; 98, s. 159-170
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increasing surface temperatures due to climate change have the potential to alter plant litter mass loss and nutrient release during decomposition. However, a great deal of uncertainty remains concerning how ecosystem functioning may be affected by interactions between warming and other drivers, such as plant functional group composition and environmental context. In this study, we investigated how vascular plant litter decomposition and nutrient release were affected by experimental warming, moss removal and shrub removal along a post-fire boreal forest successional gradient. Our results show that litter decomposition and nutrient loss were primarily driven by understory plant functional group removal. The removal of mosses generally reduced litter mass loss and increased litter phosphorus (P) loss, while shrub removal typically increased litter mass loss and in one litter species reduced immobilization of P. Litter nitrogen (N) loss was unaffected by plant functional group removal. Warming interacted with successional stage and species identity of the litter decomposed, but these effects were uncommon and generally weak. As climate change advances, moss cover is expected to decrease, while shrub cover is expected to increase. Taken together with our results, this suggests that lower moss cover will decrease leaf litter decomposition rates and increase P release from litter, while increasing shrub cover will decrease decomposition rates and may reduce P release from litter. Our results demonstrate that in the short term, the direct effects of warming and successional stage will play a relatively minor role in driving litter decomposition processes in the boreal forest. In the long term, as the climate warms, temperature and its indirect effects via changes in the understory vegetation will play an important role in driving litter decomposition, thereby potentially altering C storage and nutrient cycling.
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| 7. |
- Gavazov, Konstantin, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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Vascular plant-mediated controls on atmospheric carbon assimilation and peat carbon decomposition under climate change
- 2018
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 24:9, s. 3911-3921
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change can alter peatland plant community composition by promoting the growth of vascular plants. How such vegetation change affects peatland carbon dynamics remains, however, unclear. In order to assess the effect of vegetation change on carbon uptake and release, we performed a vascular plant-removal experiment in two Sphagnum-dominated peatlands that represent contrasting stages of natural vegetation succession along a climatic gradient. Periodic measurements of net ecosystem CO2 exchange revealed that vascular plants play a crucial role in assuring the potential for net carbon uptake, particularly with a warmer climate. The presence of vascular plants, however, also increased ecosystem respiration, and by using the seasonal variation of respired CO2 radiocarbon (bomb-C-14) signature we demonstrate an enhanced heterotrophic decomposition of peat carbon due to rhizosphere priming. The observed rhizosphere priming of peat carbon decomposition was matched by more advanced humification of dissolved organic matter, which remained apparent beyond the plant growing season. Our results underline the relevance of rhizosphere priming in peatlands, especially when assessing the future carbon sink function of peatlands undergoing a shift in vegetation community composition in association with climate change.
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| 8. |
- Granath, Gustaf, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental and taxonomic controls of carbon and oxygen stable isotope composition in Sphagnum across broad climatic and geographic ranges
- 2018
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Ingår i: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus Publications. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 15:16, s. 5189-5202
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rain-fed peatlands are dominated by peat mosses (Sphagnum sp.), which for their growth depend on nutrients, water and CO2 uptake from the atmosphere. As the isotopic composition of carbon (C-12(,)13) and oxygen (O-16(,)18) of these Sphagnum mosses are affected by environmental conditions, Sphagnum tissue accumulated in peat constitutes a potential long-term archive that can be used for climate reconstruction. However, there is inadequate understanding of how isotope values are influenced by environmental conditions, which restricts their current use as environmental and palaeoenvironmental indicators. Here we tested (i) to what extent C and O isotopic variation in living tissue of Sphagnum is speciesspecific and associated with local hydrological gradients, climatic gradients (evapotranspiration, temperature, precipitation) and elevation; (ii) whether the C isotopic signature can be a proxy for net primary productivity (NPP) of Sphagnum; and (iii) to what extent Sphagnum tissue delta O-18 tracks the delta O-18 isotope signature of precipitation. In total, we analysed 337 samples from 93 sites across North America and Eurasia us ing two important peat-forming Sphagnum species (S. magellanicum, S. fuscum) common to the Holarctic realm. There were differences in delta C-13 values between species. For S. magellanicum delta C-13 decreased with increasing height above the water table (HWT, R-2 = 17 %) and was positively correlated to productivity (R-2 = 7 %). Together these two variables explained 46 % of the between-site variation in delta C-13 values. For S. fuscum, productivity was the only significant predictor of delta C-13 but had low explanatory power (total R-2 = 6 %). For delta O-18 values, approximately 90 % of the variation was found between sites. Globally modelled annual delta O-18 values in precipitation explained 69 % of the between-site variation in tissue delta O-18. S. magellanicum showed lower delta O-18 enrichment than S. fuscum (-0.83 %0 lower). Elevation and climatic variables were weak predictors of tissue delta O-18 values after controlling for delta O-18 values of the precipitation. To summarize, our study provides evidence for (a) good predictability of tissue delta O-18 values from modelled annual delta O-18 values in precipitation, and (b) the possibility of relating tissue delta C-13 values to HWT and NPP, but this appears to be species-dependent. These results suggest that isotope composition can be used on a large scale for climatic reconstructions but that such models should be species-specific.
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| 9. |
- Hicks Pries, Caitlin E., et al.
(författare)
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Decadal warming causes a consistent and persistent shift from heterotrophic to autotrophic respiration in contrasting permafrost ecosystems
- 2015
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 21:12, s. 4508-4519
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Soil carbon in permafrost ecosystems has the potential to become a major positive feedback to climate change if permafrost thaw increases heterotrophic decomposition. However, warming can also stimulate autotrophic production leading to increased ecosystem carbon storage-a negative climate change feedback. Few studies partitioning ecosystem respiration examine decadal warming effects or compare responses among ecosystems. Here, we first examined how 11 years of warming during different seasons affected autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration in a bryophyte-dominated peatland in Abisko, Sweden. We used natural abundance radiocarbon to partition ecosystem respiration into autotrophic respiration, associated with production, and heterotrophic decomposition. Summertime warming decreased the age of carbon respired by the ecosystem due to increased proportional contributions from autotrophic and young soil respiration and decreased proportional contributions from old soil. Summertime warming's large effect was due to not only warmer air temperatures during the growing season, but also to warmer deep soils year-round. Second, we compared ecosystem respiration responses between two contrasting ecosystems, the Abisko peatland and a tussock-dominated tundra in Healy, Alaska. Each ecosystem had two different timescales of warming (<5years and over a decade). Despite the Abisko peatland having greater ecosystem respiration and larger contributions from heterotrophic respiration than the Healy tundra, both systems responded consistently to short- and long-term warming with increased respiration, increased autotrophic contributions to ecosystem respiration, and increased ratios of autotrophic to heterotrophic respiration. We did not detect an increase in old soil carbon losses with warming at either site. If increased autotrophic respiration is balanced by increased primary production, as is the case in the Healy tundra, warming will not cause these ecosystems to become growing season carbon sources. Warming instead causes a persistent shift from heterotrophic to more autotrophic control of the growing season carbon cycle in these carbon-rich permafrost ecosystems.
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| 10. |
- Jansson, Johan, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Personal Norms for Dealing with Climate Change : Results from a Survey Using Moral Foundations Theory
- 2015
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Ingår i: Sustainable Development. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0968-0802 .- 1099-1719. ; 23:6, s. 381-395
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change has become one of the main issues in environmental and sustainability discussions during the last decade. Acting to reduce climate change can be viewed as a prosocial behavior, and previous research has found that personal norms are important in explaining these types of behavior, together with other attitudinal factors. In this study we use Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to explore the antecedents of personal climate change norms together with three attitudinal factors: problem awareness, social norms and adherence to the New Ecological Paradigm. Analyzing data from a nationwide survey (N = 1086) conducted in Sweden, we find that the moral foundations concerning harm and fairness are positively associated with personal climate change norms, whereas authority has a negative relation. However, the moral foundations from MFT contribute less in explaining personal climate change norms compared with the attitudinal factors included in the study. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.
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