Thaw of ice-rich permafrost soils on sloping terrain can trigger erosional disturbance events that displace large volumes of soil and sediment, kill and damage plants, and initiate secondary succession. We examined how retrogressive thaw slumps (RTS), a common form of thermo-erosional disturbance in arctic tundra, affected the local loss and […]
The effect of elevated CO2 on plant-microbial interactions and nitrogen (N) cycling is critical to predicting plant growth responses to elevated CO2, because plant growth is often N-limited. We investigated whether the effects of elevated CO2 on plant-microbial N dynamics differed among six annual plant species: three European grasses that […]
The effects of grassland conversion to forest vegetation and of individual tree species on microbial activity in Siberia are largely unstudied. Here, we examined the effects of the six most commonly dominant tree species in Siberian forests (Scots pine, spruce, Arolla pine, larch, aspen and birch) on soil C and […]
Methane consumption by temperate forest soils is a major sink for this important greenhouse gas, but little is known about how tree species influence CH4 uptake by soils. Here, we show that six common tree species in Siberian boreal and temperate forests significantly affect potential CH4 consumption in laboratory microcosms. […]
Changes in tree species composition could affect how forests produce and consume greenhouse gases, because the soil microorganisms that carry out these biogeochemical transformations are often sensitive to plant characteristics. We examined the effects of thirty years of stand development under six tree species in Siberian forests (Scots pine, spruce, […]
[1] Nitrous oxide (N2O) is an important greenhouse gas and participates in the destruction of stratospheric ozone. Soil bacteria produce N2O through denitrification and nitrification, but these processes differ radically in substrate requirements and responses to the environment. Understanding the controls over N2O efflux from soils, and how N2O emissions may […]
Elevated atmospheric CO2 tends to stimulate plant productivity, which could either stimulate or suppress the processing of soil carbon, thereby feeding back to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We employed an acid-hydrolysis-incubation method and a net nitrogen-mineralization assay to assess stability of soil carbon pools and short-term nitrogen dynamics in a Florida […]
A scrub-oak woodland has maintained higher aboveground biomass accumulation after 11 years of atmospheric CO2 enrichment (ambient +350 μmol CO2 mol−1), despite the expectation of strong nitrogen (N) limitation at the site. We hypothesized that changes in plant available N and exploitation of deep sources of inorganic N in soils have sustained greater […]
Responses of soil nitrogen (N) cycling to simultaneous and potentially interacting global environmental changes are uncertain. Here, we investigated the combined effects of elevated CO2, warming, increased precipitation and enhanced N supply on soil N cycling in an annual grassland ecosystem as part of the Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment […]
Background Little is known about the combined impacts of global environmental changes and ecological disturbances on ecosystem functioning, even though such combined impacts might play critical roles in shaping ecosystem processes that can in turn feed back to climate change, such as soil emissions of greenhouse gases. Methodology/Principal Findings We […]