Boreal Forests: Distributions, Biodiversity, and Management

Kayes, Imrul; Mallik, Azim U.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-95981-8_17

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The boreal forest biome, which extends across the northern hemisphere and encircles the Arctic, covers about 11% of the Earth's land area and contains about one-third of the total forested area on our planet (Högberg et al, 2022). The boreal forest plays a fundamental role in the global carbon cycle as a sink for carbon (Pan et al, 2011), harbours a diverse biota with tens of thousands of species (Kayes & Mallik, 2021) and provides invaluable ecosystem services, ranging from timber products to arenas for recreation (Pohjanmies et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change drives substantial decline of understorey species richness and abundance in Norway spruce forests during 32 years of vegetation monitoring

Økland

Halvorsen

Lange

et al. 2023

J Vegetation Science

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Questions Observations in permanent forest vegetation plots in Norway and elsewhere indicate that complex changes have taken place over the period 1988–2020. These observations are summarised in the “climate‐induced understorey change (CIUC)” hypothesis, i.e. that the understorey vegetation of old‐growth boreal forests in Norway undergoes significant long‐term changes and that these changes are consistent with the ongoing climate change as an important driver. Seven testable predictions were derived from the CIUC hypothesis. Location Norway. Methods Vegetation has been monitored in a total of 458 permanently marked plots, each 1 m2, in nine old‐growth forest sites dominated by Picea abies at intervals of 5–8 years over the 32‐year study period. For each of the 52 combinations of site and year, we obtained response variables for the abundance of single species, abundance and species density of taxonomic–ecological species groups and two size classes of cryptogams, and site species richness. All of these variables were subjected to linear regression modelling with site and year as predictors. Results Mean annual temperature, growing‐season length and the number of days with precipitation were higher in the study period than in the preceding ca. 30‐year period, resulting in increasingly favourable conditions for bryophyte growth. Site species richness decreased by 13% over the 32‐year study period. On average, group abundance of vascular plants decreased by 24% (decrease in forbs: 38%). Patterns of group abundance change differed among cryptogam groups: although peat‐moss abundance increased by 39%, the abundance of mosses, hepatics and lichens decreased by 13%, 49% and 67%, respectively. Group abundance of small cryptogams decreased by 61%, whereas a 13% increase was found for large cryptogams. Of 61 single species tested for abundance change, a significant decrease was found for 43 species, whereas a significant increase was found only for 6 species. Conclusions The major patterns of change in species richness, group species density and group abundance observed over the 32‐year study period accord with most predictions from the CIUC hypothesis and are interpreted as direct and indirect responses to climate change, partly mediated through changes in the population dynamics of microtine rodents. The more favourable climate for bryophyte growth explains the observed increase for a few large bryophyte species, whereas the decrease observed for small mosses and hepatics is interpreted as an indirect amensalistic effect, brought about by shading and burial in mats of larger species and accelerated by reduced fine‐scale disturbance by microtine rodents. Indirect effects of a thicker moss mat most likely drive the vascular plant decline although long‐term effects of tree‐stand dynamics and former logging cannot be completely ruled out. Our results suggest that the ongoing climate change has extensive, cascading effects on boreal forest ecosystems. The importance of long time‐series of permanent vegetation plots f...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change drives substantial decline of understorey species richness and abundance in Norway spruce forests during 32 years of vegetation monitoring

Økland

Halvorsen

Lange

et al. 2023

J Vegetation Science

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“…Boreal forests are one of the largest biomes covering 29% of land surfaces (Kayes & Mallik, 2020) and storing at least 30% of the Earth's carbon (Walker et al, 2019). This terrestrial ecosystem is habitat to a diversity of understory plants including lichens, and bryophytes (small non-vascular plants including mosses, liverworts, and hornworts).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Boreal moss-microbe interactions are revealed through metagenome assembly of novel bacterial species

Ishak

Faticov

Rondeau-Leclaire

et al. 2023

Preprint

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- Moss microbial communities play important roles for ecosystem processes in boreal forests. Host identity and leaf litter presence can affect microbial community structures of mosses. However, the extent to which host-specific characteristics and land use type affect taxonomic and functional profiles of microbial communities of boreal mosses is still poorly understood. - We used shotgun metagenomic sequencing to characterize microbial taxonomy and metabolic KEGG ortholog (KO) profiles between green and brown sections of five moss species across different natural sites, and two moss species between a natural site and a mine site in Eeyou Istchee, Quebec, Canada. - Our results demonstrate that the abundance of nitrogen metabolic genes differ between moss sections and that mosses from natural and mine environment associate with different microbial taxa and KO profiles. Importantly, conditions at the mine site appear to favor microbial taxa that can tolerate perturbated environments, including taxa that can oxidize sulfur and participate in biofilm formation. - Overall, our results highlight that moss section, moss species identity, and land-use type are strong drivers of diversity and community structure of moss-associated microbial taxa and metabolic genes. These findings could have major implications for boreal forests facing climate change and anthropogenic pressures

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“…Monoterpene emissions dominate boreal forested areas, covering 29% of forested land areas, which makes this region a significant source of biogenic SOA (Rinne et al, 2009;Kayes and Mallik, 2020). Hence, the significance of monoterpenes and their oxidation products to understand global natural background aerosol burdens is evident.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A model study on investigating the sensitivity of aerosol forcing on the volatilities of semi-volatile organic compounds

Irfan,

Kühn,

Yli-Juuti

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Abstract. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) constitutes an important component of atmospheric particulate matter, with substantial influence on air quality, human health and the global climate. Volatility basis set (VBS) framework has provided a valuable tool for better simulating the formation and evolution of SOA where SOA precursors are grouped by their volatility. This is done in order to avoid the computational cost of simulating possibly hundreds of atmospheric organic species involved in SOA formation. The accuracy of this framework relies upon the accuracy of the volatility distribution of the oxidation products of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) used to represent SOA formation. However, the volatility distribution of SOA forming vapours remains inadequately constrained within global climate models, leading to uncertainties in the predicted aerosol mass loads and climate impacts. This study presents the results from simulations using a process-scale particle growth model and a global climate model, illustrating how uncertainties in the volatility distribution of biogenic SOA precursor gases affects the simulated cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). We primarily focused on the volatility of oxidation products derived from monoterpenes as they represent the dominant class of VOCs emitted by boreal trees. Our findings reveal that the particle growth rate and their survival to CCN sizes, as simulated by the process scale model, are highly sensitive to uncertainties in the volatilities of condensing organic vapours. Interestingly, we note that this high sensitivity is less pronounce in global scale model simulations, as the CCN concentration and cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) simulated in the global model remain insensitive to a one order of magnitude shift in the volatility distribution of organics. However, a notable difference arises in the SOA mass concentration as a result of volatility shifts in the global model. Specifically, a one order of magnitude decrease in volatility corresponds to an approximate 13 % increase in SOA mass concentration, while, a one order of magnitude increase results in a 9 % decrease in SOA mass concentration over the boreal region. SOA mass and CCN concentrations are found to be more sensitive to the uncertainties associated with the volatility of semi-volatile compounds than the low-volatile compounds. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of a better representation of saturation concentration values for volatility bins when employing a reduced number of bins in a global scale model. A comparative analysis between a finely resolved 9-bin VBS setup and a simpler 3-bin VBS setup highlights the significance of these choices. The study also indicates that radiative forcing attributed to changes in SOA is notably more sensitive to the volatility distribution of semi-volatile compounds than low-volatile compounds. In the 3-bin VBS setup, a ten-fold decrease in volatility of the highest volatility bin results in a shortwave instantaneous radiative forcing (IRFari) of -0.2 ± 0.10 Wm−2 and an effective radiative forcing (ERF) of +0.8 ± 2.24 Wm−2, while a ten-fold increase in volatility leads to an IRFari of +0.05 ± 0.04 Wm−2 and ERF of +0.45 ±2.3 Wm−2. These findings underscore the critical need for a more accurate representation of semi-volatile compounds within global scale models to effectively capture the aerosol loads and the subsequent climate effects.

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Boreal Forests: Distributions, Biodiversity, and Management

Cited by 7 publications

References 24 publications

Climate change drives substantial decline of understorey species richness and abundance in Norway spruce forests during 32 years of vegetation monitoring

Climate change drives substantial decline of understorey species richness and abundance in Norway spruce forests during 32 years of vegetation monitoring

Boreal moss-microbe interactions are revealed through metagenome assembly of novel bacterial species

A model study on investigating the sensitivity of aerosol forcing on the volatilities of semi-volatile organic compounds

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