| 1. |
- Guasconi, Daniela, 1992-
(författare)
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The hidden half of the meadow : Interactions between drought, soil carbon, roots and soil microbial communities
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Soil is a hidden ecosystem which harbours plant roots and countless microorganisms, vital for sustaining life aboveground. These belowground communities provide essential ecosystem services like soil stabilisation and organic matter decomposition. Soil is also one of the largest terrestrial carbon repositories, and land management strategies aimed at increasing organic matter inputs from plants, such as compost additions, can promote further soil carbon accumulation. Because organic carbon is important for soil water retention, this management may also help to increase resilience against more frequent and intense droughts. Although roots and microbial communities are largely acknowledged to play a key role in regulating the carbon cycle, there are still many open questions regarding the link between above- and belowground processes and ecosystem functions. Observing climate- and management-driven changes in the soil habitat is fundamental for understanding how ecosystems respond to environmental change.The aim of this thesis is to explore the relationship between soil properties, plant communities, and soil microbial communities in response to environmental changes. The research builds on a meta-analysis of drought effects on grasslands, and a multifactorial field experiment which combined three years of precipitation reduction and a compost treatment in two Swedish grasslands. We analysed the response of roots and soil microbial communities to drought and compost amendments, and identified environmental factors behind their large spatial variability. Finally, we tested the effects of compost additions on soil carbon storage and its interactions with drought.The results of the meta-analysis indicate that, on a global scale, grassland roots and shoots have diverging responses to drought duration and intensity, with long-term climate mediating that difference. At the local scale assessed in the field experiment, we observed that the spatial patterns of soil microbial communities were driven by soil properties and vegetation. Growing season drought affected roots only at trait level, but did not significantly affect microbial communities. Positive effects of compost on aboveground plant productivity and fungal growth were detectable after three years. Compost amendments also increased the percentage of total soil carbon, but no net increase in soil carbon stocks was detected. Spatial variability in roots and microbial communities was larger than the treatment effects, and was important in shaping microbial community composition and determining grassland responses to drought.Taken together, these findings suggest that roots and microbial communities are likely to be tolerant to drought a within the timescale of this experiment, but we did not observe an increase soil carbon sequestration or drought resilience when adding compost. This thesis highlights the importance of considering soil processes as complementary to aboveground observations when studying carbon dynamics, predicting ecosystem responses to environmental change, and developing sustainable land management practices.
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| 2. |
- Hugelius, Gustaf, 1980-
(författare)
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Quantity and quality of soil organic matter in permafrost terrain
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- High latitude terrestrial ecosystems are considered key components in the global carbon (C) cycle and hold large reservoirs of soil organic carbon (SOC). Much of this is stored as soil organic matter (SOM) in permafrost soils and peat deposits and is vulnerable to remobilization under future global warming. While the large size and potential vulnerability of arctic SOM reservoirs is recognized, detailed knowledge on its landscape partitioning and quality is poor. This thesis describes total storage, landscape partitioning and lability of SOM stored in permafrost areas of Canada and Russia. Detailed studies of SOC partitioning highlight the importance of especially permafrost peatlands, but also of O-horizons in moist tundra soils and cryoturbated soil horizons. A general characterization of SOM in an area of discontinuous permafrost shows that >70% of the SOC in the landscape is stored in SOM with a low degree of decomposition. Projections of permafrost thaw predict that the amount of SOC stored in the active layer of permafrost soils in this area could double by the end of this century. A lateral expansion of current thermokarst lakes by 30 m would expose comparable amounts of SOC to degradation. The results from this thesis have demonstrated the value of high-resolution studies of SOC storage. It is found that peat plateaus, common in the sporadic and discontinuous permafrost zones, store large quantities of labile SOM and may be highly susceptible to permafrost degradation, especially thermokarst, under future climate warming. Large quantities of labile SOM is also stored in cryoturbated soil horizons which may be affected by active layer warming and deepening. The current upscaling methodology is statistically evaluated and recommendations are given for the design of future studies. To accurately predict responses of periglacial C pools to a warming climate detailed studies of SOC storage and partitioning in different periglacial landscapes are needed.
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| 3. |
- Hugelius, Gustaf, 1980-
(författare)
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Soil organic carbon in permafrost terrain : Total storage, landscape distribution and environmental controls
- 2009
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- High latitude terrestrial ecosystems are considered key components in the global carbon (C) cycle and hold large reservoirs of soil organic carbon (SOC). To a large degree, this SOC is stored in permafrost soils and peatlands and is vulnerable to remobilization under future global warming and permafrost thawing. Recent studies estimate that soils in permafrost regions store SOC equivalent to ~ 1.5 times the global atmospheric C pool. Ecosystems and soils interact with the atmospheric C pool; photosynthesis sequesters CO2 into SOC whereas microbial decomposition releases C based trace gases (mainly CO2 and CH4). Because of the radiative greenhouse properties of these gases, soil processes also feedback on the global climate system. Recent studies report increases in permafrost temperatures and under future climate change scenarios permafrost environments stand to undergo further changes. As permafrost thaws and surface hydrology changes, there is concern that periglacial tundra and peatland ecosystems will switch from being sinks for atmospheric C into sources, creating a potential for positive feedbacks on global warming. The magnitude of change in C fluxes resulting from climate warming and permafrost thawing depends on the remobilization processes affecting SOC stores, the size of SOC stores that become available for remobilization and the lability of the SOM compounds in these stores. While the large size and potential vulnerability of arctic SOC reservoirs is recognized, detailed knowledge on the landscape partitioning and quality of this SOC is poor. Paper I of this thesis assesses landscape allocation and environmental gradients in SOC storage in the Usa River Basin lowlands of northeastern European Russia. The Russian study area ranges from taiga region with isolated permafrost patches to tundra region with nearly continuous permafrost. Paper II of this thesis investigates total storage, landscape partitioning and quality of soil organic carbon (SOC) in the tundra and continuous permafrost terrain of the Tulemalu Lake area in the Central Canadian Arctic. Databases on soil properties, permafrost, vegetation and modeled climate are compiled and analyzed. Mean SOC storage in the two study regions is 38.3 kg C m-2 for the Usa River Basin and 33.8 kg C m-2 for Tulemalu Lake (for 1m depth in mineral soils and total depth of peat deposits). Both estimates are higher than previous estimates for the same study areas. Multivariate gradient analyses from the Usa Basin show that local vegetation and permafrost are strong predictors of soil chemical properties, overshadowing the effect of climate variables. The results highlight the importance of peatlands, particularly bogs, in bulk SOC storage in all types of permafrost terrain. In the Tulemalu Lake area significant amounts of SOC is stored in cryoturbated soil horizons with C/N ratios indicating a relatively low degree of decomposition. As this pool of cryoturbated SOC is mainly stored in the active layer, no dramatic increases in remobilization are expected following a deepening of the active layer. However, recent studies have demonstrated the importance of SOC storage in deep (>1m) cryoturbated horizons. Perennially frozen peat deposits in permafrost bogs constitute the main vulnerable SOC pool in the investigated regions. Remobilization of this frozen C can occur through gradual but widespread deepening of the active layer with subsequent talik formation, or through more rapid but localized thermokarst erosion.
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| 4. |
- Palmtag, Juri, 1980-
(författare)
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Landscape partitioning and burial processes of soil organic carbon in contrasting areas of continuous permafrost
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Recent studies have shown that permafrost soils in the northern circumpolar region store almost twice as much carbon as the atmosphere. Since soil organic carbon (SOC) pools have large regional and landscape-level variability, detailed SOC inventories from across the northern permafrost region are needed to assess potential remobilization of SOC with permafrost degradation and to quantify the permafrost carbon-climate feedback on global warming.This thesis provides high-resolution data on SOC storage in five study areas located in undersampled regions of the continuous permafrost zone (Zackenberg in NE Greenland; Shalaurovo and Cherskiy in NE Siberia; Ary-Mas and Logata in Taymyr Peninsula). The emphasis throughout the five different study areas is put on SOC partitioning within the landscape and soil horizon levels as well as on soil forming processes under periglacial conditions. Our results indicate large differences in mean SOC 0–100 cm storage among study areas, ranging from 4.8 to 30.0 kg C m-2, highlighting the need to consider numerous factors as topography, geomorphology, land cover, soil texture, soil moisture, etc. in the assessment of landscape-level and regional SOC stock estimates.In the high arctic mountainous area of Zackenberg, the mean SOC storage is low due to the high proportion of bare grounds. The geomorphology based upscaling resulted in a c. 40% lower estimate compared to a land cover based upscaling (4.8 vs 8.3 kg C m-2, respectively). A landform approach provides a better tool for identifying hotspots of SOC burial in the landscape, which in this area corresponds to alluvial fan deposits in the foothills of the mountains. SOC burial by cryoturbation was much more limited and largely restricted to soils in the lower central valley. In the lowland permafrost study areas of Russia the mean SOC 0–100 cm storage ranged from 14.8 to 30.0 kg C m-2. Cryoturbation is the main burial process of SOC, storing on average c. 30% of the total landscape SOC 0–100 cm in deeper C-enriched pockets in all study areas. In Taymyr Peninsula, the mean SOC storage between the Ary-Mas and Logata study areas differed by c. 40% (14.8 vs 20.8 kg C m-2, respectively). We ascribe this mainly to the finer soil texture in the latter study area. Grain size analyses show that cryoturbation is most prominent in silt loam soils with high coarse silt to very fine sand fractions. However, in profiles and samples not affected by C-enrichment, C concentrations and densities were higher in silt loam soils with higher clay to medium silt fractions.
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