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Warming in the Arctic accelerates thawing of permafrost-affected soils, which leads to a release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. We do not know whether permafrost thaw also releases non-methane volatile organic compounds that can contribute to both negative and positive radiative forcing on climate. Here we show using proton transfer reaction–time of flight–mass spectrometry that substantial amounts of ethanol and methanol and in total 316 organic ions were released from Greenlandic permafrost soils upon thaw in laboratory incubations. We demonstrate that the majority of this release is taken up in the active layer above. In an experiment using 14C-labeled ethanol and methanol, we demonstrate that these compounds are consumed by microorganisms. Our findings highlight that the thawing permafrost soils are not only a considerable source of volatile organic compounds but also that the active layer regulates their release into the atmosphere.

Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) are produced by all life forms. Their release into the atmosphere is important with regards to a number of climaterelated physical and chemical processes and great effort has been put into determining sources and sinks of these compounds

Future increases in temperature and cloud cover will alter plant growth and decomposition of the large carbon pools stored in Arctic soils. A better understanding of interactions between above- and belowground processes and communities of plants and microorganisms is essential for predicting Arctic ecosystem responses to climate change. We measured ecosystem CO2 fluxes during the growing season for seven years in a dwarf-shrub tundra in West Greenland manipulated with warming and shading and experiencing a natural larvae outbreak. Vegetation composition, soil fungal community composition, microbial activity, and nutrient availability were analyzed after six years of treatment. Warming and shading altered the plant community, reduced plant CO2 uptake, and changed fungal community composition. Ecosystem carbon accumulation decreased during the growing season by 61% in shaded plots and 51% in warmed plots. Also, plant recovery was reduced in both manipulations following the larvae outbreak during the fifth treatment year. The reduced plant recovery in manipulated plots following the larvae outbreak suggests that climate change may increase tundra ecosystem sensitivity to disturbances. Also, plant community changes mediated via reduced light and reduced water availability due to increased temperature can strongly lower the carbon sink strength of tundra ecosystems.

Highlights • Changes in volatile emission patterns during decomposition vary between plant species. • Volatile emissions differ between high arctic and low arctic litter. • Bacterial community changes correlate with volatile emission changes for Salix litter.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) are produced by all life forms. Their release into the atmosphere is important with regards to a number of physical and chemical processes and great effort has been put into determining sources and sinks of these compounds in recent years. Soil microbes as a possible sink for BVOCs in the atmosphere has been suggested, however, experimental evidence for this sink is scarce despite its potentially high importance to both carbon cycling and atmospheric concentrations of these gases. We therefore conducted a study with a number of commonly occurring BVOCs labelled with <sup>14</sup>C and modified existing methods to study mineralization of these compounds to <sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> in four different top soils. Five of the six BVOCs were rapidly mineralized by microbes in all soils. However, great differences were observed with regards to speed of mineralization, extent of mineralization and variation between soil types. Methanol, benzaldehyde, acetophenone and the oxygenated monoterpene geraniol were mineralized within hours in all soils. The hydrocarbon monoterpene p-cymene was mineralized rapidly in soil from a coniferous forest but slower in soil from and adjacent beech stand while chloroform was mineralized slowly in all soils. From our study it is clear that soil microbes are able to degrade completely BVOCs released by aboveground vegetation as well as BVOCs released by soil microbes and plant roots. In addition to the possible atmospheric implications of this degradation the very fast mineralization rates are likely important in shaping the net BVOC emissions from soil and it is possible that BVOC formation and degradation may be an important but little recognized part of internal carbon cycling in soil.</p>

Vast amounts of carbon are bound in both active layer and permafrost soils in the Arctic. As a consequence of climate warming, the depth of the active layer is increasing in size and permafrost soils are thawing. We hypothesize that pulses of biogenic volatile organic compounds are released from the near‐surface active layer during spring, and during late summer season from thawing permafrost, while the subsequent biogeochemical processes occurring in thawed soils also lead to emissions. Biogenic volatile organic compounds are reactive gases that have both negative and positive climate forcing impacts when introduced to the Arctic atmosphere, and the knowledge of their emission magnitude and pattern is necessary to construct reliable climate models. However, it is unclear how different ecosystems and environmental factors such as drainage conditions upon permafrost thaw affect the emission and compound composition. Here we show that incubations of frozen B horizon of the active layer and permafrost soils collected from a High Arctic heath and fen release a range of biogenic volatile organic compounds upon thaw and during subsequent incubation experiments at temperatures of 10°C and 20°C. Meltwater drainage in the fen soils increased emission rates nine times, while having no effect in the drier heath soils. Emissions generally increased with temperature, and emission profiles for the fen soils were dominated by benzenoids and alkanes, while benzenoids, ketones, and alcohols dominated in heath soils. Our results emphasize that future changes affecting the drainage conditions of the Arctic tundra will have a large influence on volatile emissions from thawing permafrost soils – particularly in wetland/fen areas.

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