Biocomplexity and biogeochemical cycling in terrestrial ecosystems

• The activities concerted within Tellus are aiming at adding essential knowledge to the system scale aspects of fluxes and transformation of carbon (C) in the terrestrial domain. The systems studied are the Arctic, the alpine area of the Scandes, and organic soils in southern Sweden (including both forest and agricultural systems). The main research sites are Skogaryd, in the boreal forest, and Latnjajaure Field Station in the western Abisko Mountains. The overall aim with the present work at Skogaryd is to increase our fundamental understanding of process involved in cycling of C and nitrogen (N) in forest ecosystems, and generate high quality data on C/N cycle from drained forested organic soils using micrometeorological methods, laser and automatic chambers techniques. Skogaryd is also included in NitroEurope, an EU project focusing on modelling and up-scaling of greenhouse gas fluxes, and is incorporated in two interdisciplinary research centres at University of Gothenburg, Tellus (http://www.tellus.science.gu.se/english/) and Gothenburg Atmospheric Science Centre (GAC; http://www.chalmers.se/gmv/gac-en/). Furthermore, our research group has been instrumental in the establishment of the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) network by Professor Ulf Molau who chaired ITEX 1992-1996 and Latnjajaure Field Station have been a master site within the network since 1992. As an outcome, much of the research in Latnjajaure during the 90ies was focused plant responsiveness to global change. However, since 2002 the research has expanded and projects are now running that are dealing with snow-vegetation-soil interactions. Recently, a collaboration with Dr. Elisabeth J. Cooper, of the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), and Prof. Bo Elberling, University of Copenhagen, was initiated focusing on winter soil respiration and comparing sub-arctic and high-arctic trace gas fluxes. Currently, we have these projects running in tundra ecosystems: 1.Climate-related changes in tundra ecosystems – An IPY project (PIs Björk and Molau with others). 2.Temporal pattern of CO2, CH4 and N2O fluxes and soil microbial structure in snow-covered ecosystems (PIs Björk, Elberling, Klemedtsson, and Cooper). 3.The responsiveness of tundra ecosystems to warming: linking above- and below-ground components (PI Björk). There is also a project under evaluation by the Swedish Research Council, which are entitled ‘The fate of carbon in high-arctic tundra ecosystems under changing snow cover conditions’. The research questions that we want to address within this winter ecology network are 1) to increase our understand of the C dynamics (thus explicitly linking ecosystem C sequestration pattern and soil microbial dynamics) in tundra ecosystems, and, particularly, (2) to improve the winter resolution of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) effluxes to the atmosphere. Furthermore, (3) to understand the influence of changing snow cover, both in depth and duration, for the C dynamics in tundra ecosystems.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Arctic

Biocomplexity

Climate Change

Greenhouse gases

Snow

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)