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- Elmendorf, Sarah C., et al.
(författare)
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Plot-scale evidence of tundra vegetation change and links to recent summer warming
- 2012
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Ingår i: Nature Climate Change. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 2:6, s. 453-457
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Temperature is increasing at unprecedented rates across most of the tundra biome. Remote-sensing data indicate that contemporary climate warming has already resulted in increased productivity over much of the Arctic, but plot-based evidence for vegetation transformation is not widespread. We analysed change in tundra vegetation surveyed between 1980 and 2010 in 158 plant communities spread across 46 locations.We found biome-wide trends of increased height of the plant canopy and maximum observed plant height for most vascular growth forms; increased abundance of litter; increased abundance of evergreen, low-growing and tall shrubs; and decreased abundance of bare ground. Intersite comparisons indicated an association between the degree of summer warming and change in vascular plant abundance, with shrubs, forbs and rushes increasing with warming. However, the association was dependent on the climate zone, the moisture regime and the presence of permafrost. Our data provide plot-scale evidence linking changes in vascular plant abundance to local summer warming in widely dispersed tundra locations across the globe.
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| 2. |
- Luo, Y. -W, et al.
(författare)
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Database of diazotrophs in global ocean : abundance, biomass and nitrogen fixation rates
- 2012
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Ingår i: Earth System Science Data. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1866-3508 .- 1866-3516. ; 4:1, s. 47-73
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Marine N-2 fixing microorganisms, termed di-azotrophs, are a key functional group in marine pelagic ecosystems. The biological fixation of dinitrogen ( N-2) to bioavailable nitrogen provides an important new source of nitrogen for pelagic marine ecosystems and influences primary productivity and organic matter export to the deep ocean. As one of a series of efforts to collect biomass and rates specific to different phytoplankton functional groups, we have constructed a database on diazotrophic organisms in the global pelagic upper ocean by compiling about 12 000 direct field measurements of cyanobacterial diazotroph abundances (based on microscopic cell counts or qPCR assays targeting the nifH genes) and N-2 fixation rates. Biomass conversion factors are estimated based on cell sizes to convert abundance data to diazotrophic biomass. The database is limited spatially, lacking large regions of the ocean especially in the Indian Ocean. The data are approximately log-normal distributed, and large variances exist in most sub-databases with non-zero values differing 5 to 8 orders of magnitude. Reporting the geometric mean and the range of one geometric standard error below and above the geometric mean, the pelagic N-2 fixation rate in the global ocean is estimated to be 62 (52-73) Tg Nyr(-1) and the pelagic diazotrophic biomass in the global ocean is estimated to be 2.1 (1.4-3.1) Tg C from cell counts and to 89 (43-150) Tg C from nifH- based abundances. Reporting the arithmetic mean and one standard error instead, these three global estimates are 140 +/- 9.2 Tg Nyr(-1), 18 +/- 1.8 Tg C and 590 +/- 70 Tg C, respectively. Uncertainties related to biomass conversion factors can change the estimate of geometric mean pelagic diazotrophic biomass in the global ocean by about +/- 70 %. It was recently established that the most commonly applied method used to measure N-2 fixation has underestimated the true rates. As a result, one can expect that future rate measurements will shift the mean N-2 fixation rate upward and may result in significantly higher estimates for the global N-2 fixation. The evolving database can nevertheless be used to study spatial and temporal distributions and variations of marine N-2 fixation, to validate geochemical estimates and to parameterize and validate biogeochemical models, keeping in mind that future rate measurements may rise in the future.
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