Spatial heterogeneity and environmental predictors of permafrost region soil organic carbon stocks

Mishra, Umakant; Hugelius, Gustaf; Shelef, Eitan; Yang, Yuanhe; Strauß, Jens; Лупачев, А. В.; Harden, J. W.; Jastrow, Julie D.; Ping, C. L.; Riley, William J.; Schuur, Edward A. G.; Matamala, Roser; Siewert, Matthias Benjamin; Nave, Lucas E.; Koven, C.; Fuchs, Matthias; Palmtag, Juri; Kuhry, Peter; Treat, Claire C.; Zubrzycki, Sebastian; Hoffman, F. M.; Elberling, Bo; Camill, Philip; Veremeeva, Alexandra; Orr, Andrew

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaz5236

Cited by 170 publications

(173 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Prevailing deposit types are Yedoma (Strauss et al, 2017) and thermokarst deposits (Veremeeva et al, 2021) with the latter covering approximately 58 % of the land area in regions with high Yedoma coverage, and up to 96.4 % in regions with low Yedoma deposit occurrence. These deposits are intermitted by marshes, river valleys and deltas (Veremeeva et al, 2021).…”

Section: Calamagrostis Langsdorfiimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of global climate warming, carbon emissions from Arctic permafrost regions have been identified as a key source of greenhouse gases (GHG), further accelerating the permafrost carbon-climate feedback and increasing atmosphere warming (Schuur et al, 2015;Turetsky et al, 2019;Bowen et al, 2020). An estimated 1300 Petagrams (Pg) of carbon are stored within the upper 3 m of ground in the permafrost region, of which approximately 1000 Pg are perennially frozen (Hugelius et al, 2014;Mishra et al, 2021). The carbon storage and release mechanisms of permafrost had an important role for atmospheric GHG levels during the Late Quaternary (Zimov et al, 2006;Walter et al, 2007;Lindgren et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Large Herbivores Affecting Permafrost – Impacts of Grazing on Permafrost Soil Carbon Storage in Northeastern Siberia

Windirsch

Grosse

Ulrich

et al. 2021

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Abstract. The risk of carbon emissions from permafrost ground is linked to ground temperature and thus in particular to thermal insulation by vegetation and organic soil layers in summer and snow cover in winter. This ground insulation is strongly influenced by the presence of large herbivorous animals browsing for food. In this study, we examine the potential impact of large herbivore presence on the ground carbon storage in thermokarst landscapes of northeastern Siberia. Our aim is to understand how intensive animal grazing may affect permafrost thaw and hence organic matter decomposition, leading to different ground carbon storage, which is significant in the active layer. Therefore, we analysed sites with differing large herbivore grazing intensity in the Pleistocene Park near Chersky and measured maximum thaw depth, total organic carbon content and decomposition state by δ13C isotope analysis. In addition, we determined sediment grain size composition as well as ice and water content. We found the thaw depth to be shallower and carbon storage to be higher in intensively grazed areas compared to extensively and non-grazed sites in the same thermokarst basin. The intensive grazing presumably leads to a more stable thermal ground regime and thus to increased carbon storage in the thermokarst deposits and active layer. However, the high carbon content found within the upper 20 cm on intensively grazed sites could also indicate higher carbon input rather than reduced decomposition, which requires further studies. We connect our findings to more animal trampling in winter, which causes snow disturbance and cooler winter ground temperatures during the average annual 225 days below freezing. This winter cooling overcompensates ground warming due to the lower insulation associated with shorter heavily grazed vegetation during the average annual 140 thaw days. We conclude that intensive grazing influences the carbon storage capacities of permafrost areas and hence might be an actively manageable instrument to reduce net carbon emission from these sites.

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Section: Calamagrostis Langsdorfiimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large Herbivores Affecting Permafrost – Impacts of Grazing on Permafrost Soil Carbon Storage in Northeastern Siberia

Windirsch

Grosse

Ulrich

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…Characterizing the underground community should be a priority Our results showed that plant functional community composition and diversity were good predictors of above-ground carbon stocks and ecosystem fluxes whereas a large part of variation in soil organic carbon stocks remained unexplained. This is an issue as most of the carbon in tundra ecosystems is located in the soil (Hugelius et al 2014;Mishra et al 2021).…”

Section: Functional Diversity Of Leaf Economics Increases Ecosystem Functioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships between aboveground plant traits and carbon cycling in tundra plant communities

Happonen

Virkkala

Kemppinen

et al. 2019

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SummaryWe investigated how plant functional traits influence fine-scale patterns of tundra carbon cycling, and how carbon cycling responds to climate warming.We built a hierarchical model that included abiotic conditions (summer air and winter soil temperatures, and soil resources), plant community functional composition and diversity (plant size and leaf economics), and carbon cycling (above-ground and soil organic carbon stocks, and photosynthetic and respiratory fluxes). We also simulated warming effects on the peak-season CO2 budget.Plant size was the strongest predictor for most carbon cycling variables. Communities of larger plants were associated with larger CO2 fluxes and above-ground carbon stocks. Communities with fast leaf economics had higher rates of photosynthesis and soil respiration, but lower soil organic carbon stocks. Leaf economic diversity increased CO2 fluxes, while size diversity increased the above-ground carbon stock. Simulations suggested that warmer summer air temperatures increase plant size and accelerate leaf economics, while warmer winter soil temperatures increase plant size. Both changes would enhance CO2 uptake during the peak season.We show that traits act as mediators between abiotic conditions and carbon cycling. Our study firmly links the trait composition and diversity of plant communities to ecosystem functions in the tundra.

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“…Because of the vastness, inaccessibility and extreme climate of the Arctic zone, research in this region is a complex endeavour . There are vast stocks of carbon in permafrost soils (Yu, 2012;Hugelius et al, 2014;Schuur et al, 2013;Strauss et al, 2017;Nichols and Peteet, 2019;Mishra et al, 2021) that have accumulated over the past millennia, which are at increased risk of thawing linked to climate change and its associated Arctic amplification (Schuur et al, 2008;Serreze and Barry, 2011;IPCC, 2014;Schuur et al, 2015;Meredith et al, 2019;Hugelius et al, 2020). With limited insights into current Arctic carbon cycle processes, it is difficult to determine trends and changes in Arctic carbon budgets (Belshe et al, 2013;McGuire et al, 2012;Oechel et al, 2014;Pörtner et al, 2019;Bruhwiler et al, 2021).…”

Section: Section 1: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representativeness assessment of the pan-Arctic eddy-covariance site network, and optimized future enhancements

Pallandt

Kumar

Mauritz

et al. 2021

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Abstract. Large changes in the Arctic carbon balance are expected as warming linked to climate change threatens to destabilize ancient permafrost carbon stocks. The eddy covariance (EC) method is an established technique to quantify net losses and gains of carbon between the biosphere and atmosphere at high spatio-temporal resolution. Over the past decades, a growing network of terrestrial EC tower sites has been established across the Arctic, but a comprehensive assessment of the network’s representativeness within the heterogeneous Arctic region is still lacking. This creates additional uncertainties when integrating flux data across sites, for example when upscaling fluxes to constrain pan-Arctic carbon budgets, and changes therein. This study provides an inventory of Arctic (here >= 60° N) EC sites, which has also been made available online (https://cosima.nceas.ucsb.edu/carbon-flux-sites/). Our database currently comprises 120 EC sites, but only 83 are listed as active, and just 25 of these active sites remain operational throughout the winter. To map the representativeness of this EC network, based on 18 bioclimatic and edaphic variables, we evaluated the similarity between environmental conditions observed at the tower locations and those within the larger Arctic study domain. With the majority of sites located in Fennoscandia and Alaska, these regions were assigned the highest level of network representativeness, while large parts of Siberia and patches of Canada were classified as under-represented. This division between regions is further emphasized for wintertime and methane flux data coverage. Across the Arctic, particularly mountainous regions were poorly represented by the current EC observation network. We tested three different strategies to identify new site locations, or upgrades of existing sites, that optimally enhance the representativeness of the current EC network. While 15 new sites can improve the representativeness of the pan-Arctic network by 20 percent, upgrading as few as 10 existing sites to capture methane fluxes, or remain active during wintertime, can improve their respective network coverage by 28 to 33 percent. This targeted network improvement could be shown to be clearly superior to an unguided selection of new sites, therefore leading to substantial improvements in network coverage based on relatively small investments.

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Spatial heterogeneity and environmental predictors of permafrost region soil organic carbon stocks

Cited by 170 publications

References 40 publications

Large Herbivores Affecting Permafrost – Impacts of Grazing on Permafrost Soil Carbon Storage in Northeastern Siberia

Large Herbivores Affecting Permafrost – Impacts of Grazing on Permafrost Soil Carbon Storage in Northeastern Siberia

Relationships between aboveground plant traits and carbon cycling in tundra plant communities

Representativeness assessment of the pan-Arctic eddy-covariance site network, and optimized future enhancements

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