1. |
- Flechard, Chris R., et al.
(author)
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Carbon-nitrogen interactions in European forests and semi-natural vegetation - Part 1: Fluxes and budgets of carbon, nitrogen and greenhouse gases from ecosystem monitoring and modelling
- 2020
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In: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 17:6, s. 1583-1620
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The impact of atmospheric reactive nitrogen (N-r) deposition on carbon (C) sequestration in soils and biomass of unfertilized, natural, semi-natural and forest ecosystems has been much debated. Many previous results of this dC/dN response were based on changes in carbon stocks from periodical soil and ecosystem inventories, associated with estimates of N-r deposition obtained from large-scale chemical transport models. This study and a companion paper (Flechard et al., 2020) strive to reduce uncertainties of N effects on C sequestration by linking multi-annual gross and net ecosystem productivity estimates from 40 eddy covariance flux towers across Europe to local measurement-based estimates of dry and wet N-r deposition from a dedicated collocated monitoring network. To identify possible ecological drivers and processes affecting the interplay between C and N-r inputs and losses, these data were also combined with in situ flux measurements of NO, N2O and CH4 fluxes; soil NO3- leaching sampling; and results of soil incubation experiments for N and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as surveys of available data from online databases and from the literature, together with forest ecosystem (BAS-FOR) modelling. Multi-year averages of net ecosystem productivity (NEP) in forests ranged from -70 to 826 gCm(-2) yr(-1) at total wet + dry inorganic N-r deposition rates (N-dep) of 0.3 to 4.3 gNm(-2) yr(-1) and from -4 to 361 g Cm-2 yr(-1) at N-dep rates of 0.1 to 3.1 gNm(-2) yr(-1) in short semi-natural vegetation (moorlands, wetlands and unfertilized extensively managed grasslands). The GHG budgets of the forests were strongly dominated by CO2 exchange, while CH4 and N2O exchange comprised a larger proportion of the GHG balance in short semi-natural vegetation. Uncertainties in elemental budgets were much larger for nitrogen than carbon, especially at sites with elevated N-dep where N-r leaching losses were also very large, and compounded by the lack of reliable data on organic nitrogen and N-2 losses by denitrification. Nitrogen losses in the form of NO, N2O and especially NO3- were on average 27%(range 6 %-54 %) of N-dep at sites with N-dep < 1 gNm(-2) yr(-1) versus 65% (range 35 %-85 %) for N-dep > 3 gNm(-2) yr(-1). Such large levels of N-r loss likely indicate that different stages of N saturation occurred at a number of sites. The joint analysis of the C and N budgets provided further hints that N saturation could be detected in altered patterns of forest growth. Net ecosystem productivity increased with N-r deposition up to 2-2.5 gNm(-2) yr(-1), with large scatter associated with a wide range in carbon sequestration efficiency (CSE, defined as the NEP/GPP ratio). At elevated N-dep levels (> 2.5 gNm(-2) yr(-1)), where inorganic N-r losses were also increasingly large, NEP levelled off and then decreased. The apparent increase in NEP at low to intermediate N-dep levels was partly the result of geographical cross-correlations between N-dep and climate, indicating that the actual mean dC/dN response at individual sites was significantly lower than would be suggested by a simple, straightforward regression of NEP vs. N-dep.
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2. |
- Jurasinski, Gerald, et al.
(author)
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Active afforestation of drained peatlands is not a viable option under the EU Nature Restoration Law
- 2024
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In: AMBIO. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 53:7, s. 970-983
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The EU Nature Restoration Law (NRL) is critical for the restoration of degraded ecosystems and active afforestation of degraded peatlands has been suggested as a restoration measure under the NRL. Here, we discuss the current state of scientific evidence on the climate mitigation effects of peatlands under forestry. Afforestation of drained peatlands without restoring their hydrology does not fully restore ecosystem functions. Evidence on long-term climate benefits is lacking and it is unclear whether CO2 sequestration of forest on drained peatland can offset the carbon loss from the peat over the long-term. While afforestation may offer short-term gains in certain cases, it compromises the sustainability of peatland carbon storage. Thus, active afforestation of drained peatlands is not a viable option for climate mitigation under the EU Nature Restoration Law and might even impede future rewetting/restoration efforts. Instead, restoring hydrological conditions through rewetting is crucial for effective peatland restoration.
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3. |
- Lembrechts, Jonas J., et al.
(author)
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Global maps of soil temperature
- 2022
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In: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 28:9, s. 3110-3144
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km2 resolution for 0–5 and 5–15cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean=3.0±2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6±2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (−0.7±2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications.
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4. |
- Lund, Magnus, et al.
(author)
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Variability in exchange of CO2 across 12 northern peatland and tundra sites
- 2010
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In: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 16:9, s. 2436-2448
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Many wetland ecosystems such as peatlands and wet tundra hold large amounts of organic carbon (C) in their soils, and are thus important in the terrestrial C cycle. We have synthesized data on the carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange obtained from eddy covariance measurements from 12 wetland sites, covering 1-7 years at each site, across Europe and North America, ranging from ombrotrophic and minerotrophic peatlands to wet tundra ecosystems, spanning temperate to arctic climate zones. The average summertime net ecosystem exchange of CO2 (NEE) was highly variable between sites. However, all sites with complete annual datasets, seven in total, acted as annual net sinks for atmospheric CO2. To evaluate the influence of gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (R-eco) on NEE, we first removed the artificial correlation emanating from the method of partitioning NEE into GPP and R-eco. After this correction neither R-eco (P = 0.162) nor GPP (P = 0.110) correlated significantly with NEE on an annual basis. Spatial variation in annual and summertime R-eco was associated with growing season period, air temperature, growing degree days, normalized difference vegetation index and vapour pressure deficit. GPP showed weaker correlations with environmental variables as compared with R-eco, the exception being leaf area index (LAI), which correlated with both GPP and NEE, but not with R-eco. Length of growing season period was found to be the most important variable describing the spatial variation in summertime GPP and R-eco; global warming will thus cause these components to increase. Annual GPP and NEE correlated significantly with LAI and pH, thus, in order to predict wetland C exchange, differences in ecosystem structure such as leaf area and biomass as well as nutritional status must be taken into account.
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5. |
- Peltola, Olli, et al.
(author)
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Monthly gridded data product of northern wetland methane emissions based on upscaling eddy covariance observations
- 2019
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In: Earth System Science Data. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1866-3508 .- 1866-3516. ; 11:3, s. 1263-1289
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Natural wetlands constitute the largest and most uncertain source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere and a large fraction of them are found in the northern latitudes. These emissions are typically estimated using process ("bottom-up") or inversion ("top-down") models. However, estimates from these two types of models are not independent of each other since the top-down estimates usually rely on the a priori estimation of these emissions obtained with process models. Hence, independent spatially explicit validation data are needed. Here we utilize a random forest (RF) machine-learning technique to upscale CH4 eddy covariance flux measurements from 25 sites to estimate CH4 wetland emissions from the northern latitudes (north of 45° N). Eddy covariance data from 2005 to 2016 are used for model development. The model is then used to predict emissions during 2013 and 2014. The predictive performance of the RF model is evaluated using a leave-one-site-out cross-validation scheme. The performance (Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency D 0:47) is comparable to previous studies upscaling net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide and studies comparing process model output against site-level CH4 emission data. The global distribution of wetlands is one major source of uncertainty for upscaling CH4. Thus, three wetland distribution maps are utilized in the upscaling. Depending on the wetland distribution map, the annual emissions for the northern wetlands yield 32 (22.3-41.2, 95 % confidence interval calculated from a RF model ensemble), 31 (21.4-39.9) or 38 (25.9-49.5) Tg(CH4) yr-1. To further evaluate the uncertainties of the upscaled CH4 flux data products we also compared them against output from two process models (LPX-Bern and WetCHARTs), and methodological issues related to CH4 flux upscaling are discussed. The monthly upscaled CH4 flux data products are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2560163 (Peltola et al., 2019).
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