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Carbon dynamics at frost-patterned tundra driven by long-term vegetation change rather than by short-term non-growing season warming

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Abstract

Frost-patterned grounds, such as mostly barren frost boils surrounded by denser vegetation, are typical habitat mosaics in tundra. Plant and microbial processes in these habitats may be susceptible to short-term warming outside the growing season, while the areal cover of barren frost boils has decreased during the past decades due to climate warming-induced shrub expansion. The relative importance of such short-term and long-term climate impacts on carbon (C) dynamics remains unknown. We measured ecosystem CO2 uptake and release (in the field), microbial respiration (in the laboratory), as well as microbial biomass N and soil extractable N in frost boils and the directly adjacent heath in late spring and late summer. These habitats had been experimentally warmed with insulating fleeces from late September until late May for three consecutive years, which allowed us to investigate the direct short-term effects of warming and longer-term, indirect climate effects via vegetation establishment into frost boils. Non-growing season warming increased C uptake at the frost boils in late spring and decreased it in late summer, while the timing and direction of responses was opposite for the heath. Experimental warming had no effects on microbial or ecosystem C release or soil N at either of the habitats. However, C cycling was manifold higher at the heath compared to the frost boils, likely because of a higher SOM stock in the soil. Short-term climate change can thus directly alter ecosystem C uptake at frost-patterned grounds but will most likely not affect microbial C release. We conclude that the C dynamics at frost-patterned grounds under a changing climate depend most strongly on the potential of vegetation to encroach into frost boils in the long-term.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Reiner Giesler and Johan Olofsson for logistic support, and Laurenz Teuber, Erik Lundin, Jacob DeKraai, Tuukka Mäkiranta, Marlene Kassel, Max Schuchardt, Jan Borgelt, Lea Fink and Jakob Eckstein for assistance in the field and laboratory. Jonatan Klaminder, Ann Milbau, Marina Becher, Gesche Blume-Werry, Frida Keuper and Kobayashi Makoto provided advice for the set-up of experimental design. This project was funded by Grants from Vetenskapsrådet (621-2011-5444), Formas (214-2011-788), and a Wallenberg Academy Fellowship (KAW 2012.0152) to ED.

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  1. Maria Väisänen

    Present address: Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, P. O. Box 122, 96 101, Rovaniemi, Finland

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  1. Climate Impacts Research Center, EMG, Umeå University, Vetenskapens väg 38, 981 07, Abisko, Sweden

    Maria Väisänen, Eveline J. Krab & Ellen Dorrepaal

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  1. Maria Väisänen
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  2. Eveline J. Krab
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Correspondence to Maria Väisänen.

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Väisänen, M., Krab, E.J. & Dorrepaal, E. Carbon dynamics at frost-patterned tundra driven by long-term vegetation change rather than by short-term non-growing season warming. Biogeochemistry 136, 103–117 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-017-0385-y

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