The extensive boreal biome is little studied relative to its global importance. Its high soil moisture and low temperatures result in large below-ground reservoirs of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N). Presently, such high-latitude ecosystems are undergoing the largest temperature increases in global warming. Change in soil temperature or moisture in the large pools of soil organic matter could funda...

Anthropogenic changes in biodiversity and atmospheric temperature significantly influence ecosystem processes. However, little is known about potential interactive effects of plant diversity and warming on essential ecosystem properties, such as soil microbial functions and element cycling. We studied the effects of orthogonal manipulations of plant diversity (one, four, and 16 species) and war...

To test the effect of sediment resuspension on the nutrient and ecosystem dynamics we performed a 4 wk experiment in three 1000 l shear-turbulence-resuspension-mesocosm (STURM) resuspension (R) tanks and three 1000 l non-resuspension (NR) tanks. All tanks contained defaunated muddy sediment and brackish estuarine water and had similar water-column turbulence intensities (~1 cm s–1), energy diss...

Abstract Plants recycle substantial amounts of phosphorus (P) from senescing tissues, reducing the need to take up P soils. This paper reviews recycling in plants, factors that determine its quantitative importance, and evidence species low-P ecosystems possess traits enhance recycling. It focuses on roots leaves where most turnover occurs. Knowledge root dynamics lags far behind leaves, but co...

0022-1694/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. A http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.07.008 ⇑ Corresponding author. Present address: 302 Walk State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. Tel.: 863 7943. E-mail address: [email protected] (K.J. Naithani). Arid and semi-arid ecosystems represent a dynamic but poorly understood component of global carbon, water, and energy cycles. We stud...

To investigate the underlying mechanisms that control long-term recovery of tundra carbon (C) and nutrients after fire, we employed the Multiple Element Limitation (MEL) model to simulate 200-yr post-fire changes in the biogeochemistry of three sites along a burn severity gradient in response to increases in air temperature, CO2 concentration, nitrogen (N) deposition, and phosphorus (P) weather...

Small rodents with multi-annual population cycles strongly influence the dynamics of food webs, and in particular predator-prey interactions, across most of the tundra biome. Rodents are however absent from some arctic islands, and studies on performance of arctic predators under such circumstances may be very instructive since rodent cycles have been predicted to collapse in a warming Arctic. ...

The main objective of an ecosystem sustainable management is to preserve itscapacity to respond and adapt to current disturbances and/or future changes, and maintain theprovision of environmental goods and services. Two very important properties linked to thisobjective are the ecosystem resilience and resistance to disturbance factors. The objective ofthis paper is to recommend conceptual modif...

Understanding the mechanisms of biospheric feedbacks to climate change is critical to project future climate warming1–3. Although microorganisms catalyse most biosphere processes related to fluxes of greenhouse gases, little is known about the microbial role in regulating future climate change4. Integrated metagenomic and functional analyses of a long-term warming experiment in a grassland ecos...