ALBERT

Description: Abstract Modern climate change in Alaska has resulted in widespread thawing of permafrost, increased fire activity, and extensive changes in vegetation characteristics that have significant consequences for socioecological systems. Despite observations of the heightened sensitivity of these systems to change, there has not been a comprehensive assessment of factors that drive ecosystem changes throughout Alaska. Here we present research that improves our understanding of the main drivers of the spatiotemporal patterns of carbon dynamics using in situ observations, remote sensing data, and an array of modeling techniques. In the last 60 yr, Alaska has seen a large increase in mean annual air temperature (1.7°C), with the greatest warming occurring over winter and spring. Warming trends are projected to continue throughout the 21st century and will likely result in landscape‐level changes to ecosystem structure and function. Wetlands, mainly bogs and fens, which are currently estimated to cover 12.5% of the landscape, strongly influence exchange of methane between Alaska's ecosystems and the atmosphere and are expected to be affected by thawing permafrost and shifts in hydrology. Simulations suggest the current proportion of near‐surface (within 1 m) and deep (within 5 m) permafrost extent will be reduced by 9–74% and 33–55% by the end of the 21st century, respectively. Since 2000, an average of 678 595 ha/yr was burned, more than twice the annual average during 1950–1999. The largest increase in fire activity is projected for the boreal forest, which could result in a reduction in late‐successional spruce forest (8–44%) and an increase in early‐successional deciduous forest (25–113%) that would mediate future fire activity and weaken permafrost stability in the region. Climate warming will also affect vegetation communities across arctic regions, where the coverage of deciduous forest could increase (223–620%), shrub tundra may increase (4–21%), and graminoid tundra might decrease (10–24%). This study sheds light on the sensitivity of Alaska's ecosystems to change that has the potential to significantly affect local and regional carbon balance, but more research is needed to improve estimates of land‐surface and subsurface properties, and to better account for ecosystem dynamics affected by a myriad of biophysical factors and interactions.

Description: Abstract The magnitude of Alaska (AK) inland waters carbon (C) fluxes is likely to change in the future due to amplified climate warming impacts on the hydrology and biogeochemical processes in high latitude regions. Although current estimates of major aquatic C fluxes represent an essential baseline against which future change can be compared, a comprehensive assessment for AK has not yet been completed. To address this gap, we combined available data sets and applied consistent methodologies to estimate river lateral C export to the coast, river and lake carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emissions, and C burial in lakes for the six major hydrologic regions in the state. Estimated total aquatic C flux for AK was 41 Tg C/yr. Major components of this total flux, in Tg C/yr, were 18 for river lateral export, 17 for river CO2 emissions, and 8 for lake CO2 emissions. Lake C burial offset these fluxes by 2 Tg C/yr. River and lake CH4 emissions were 0.03 and 0.10 Tg C/yr, respectively. The Southeast and South central regions had the highest temperature, precipitation, terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP), and C yields (fluxes normalized to land area) were 77 and 42 g C·m−2·yr−1, respectively. Lake CO2 emissions represented over half of the total aquatic flux from the Southwest (37 g C·m−2·yr−1). The North Slope, Northwest, and Yukon regions had lesser yields (11, 15, and 17 g C·m2·yr−1), but these estimates may be the most vulnerable to future climate change, because of the heightened sensitivity of arctic and boreal ecosystems to intensified warming. Total aquatic C yield for AK was 27 g C·m−2·yr−1, which represented 16% of the estimated terrestrial NPP. Freshwater ecosystems represent a significant conduit for C loss, and a more comprehensive view of land‐water‐atmosphere interactions is necessary to predict future climate change impacts on the Alaskan ecosystem C balance.

Description: Abstract Conservation biology and applied ecology increasingly recognize that natural resource management is both an outcome and a driver of social, economic, and ecological dynamics. Protected areas offer a fundamental approach to conserving ecosystems, but they are also social‐ecological systems whose ecological management and sustainability are heavily influenced by people. This editorial, and the papers in the invited feature that it introduces, discuss three emerging themes in social‐ecological systems approaches to understanding protected areas: (1) the resilience and sustainability of protected areas, including analyses of their internal dynamics, their effectiveness, and the resilience of the landscapes within which they occur; (2) the relevance of spatial context and scale for protected areas, including such factors as geographic connectivity, context, exchanges between protected areas and their surrounding landscapes, and scale dependency in the provision of ecosystem services; and (3) efforts to reframe what protected areas are and how they both define and are defined by the relationships of people and nature. These emerging themes have the potential to transform management and policy approaches for protected areas and have important implications for conservation, in both theory and practice.

Description: Loss of top predators may contribute to high ungulate population densities and chronic over-browsing of forest ecosystems. However, spatial and temporal variability in the strength of interactions between predators and ungulates occurs over scales that are much shorter than the scales over which forest communities change, making it difficult to characterize trophic cascades in forest ecosystems. We applied the LANDIS-II forest succession model and a recently developed ungulate browsing extension to model how the moose population could interact with the forest ecosystem of Isle Royale National Park, USA, under three different wolf predation scenarios. We contrasted a 100-year future without wolves (no predation) with two predation scenarios (weak = long-term average predation rates and strong = higher than average rates). Increasing predation rates led to lower peak moose population densities, lower biomass removal rates, and higher estimates of forage availability and landscape carrying capacity, especially during the first forty-years of simulations. Thereafter, moose population density was similar for all predation scenarios, but available forage biomass and the carrying capacity of the landscape continued to diverge among predation scenarios. Changes in total aboveground live biomass and species composition were most pronounced in the no and weak predation scenarios. Consistent with smaller-scale studies, high browsing rates led to reductions in the biomass of heavily browsed Populus tremuloides, Betula papyrifera , and Abies balsamea , and increases in the biomass of unbrowsed Picea glauca and P. mariana , especially after the simulation year 2050 when existing boreal hardwood stands at Isle Royale are projected to senesce. As a consequence, lower predation rates corresponded with a landscape that progressively shifted toward dominance by P. glauca and P. mariana , and lacking available forage biomass. Consistencies with previously documented small-scale successional shifts, and population estimates and trends that approximate those from this and other boreal forests that support moose provide some confidence that these dynamics represent a trophic cascade and therefore provide an important baseline against which to evaluate long-term and large-scale effects of alternative predator management strategies on ungulate populations and forest succession. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Dense SrLa( R 0.5 Ti 0.5 )O 4 ( R= Mg, Zn) ceramics were prepared by a standard solid-state reaction method. The single phase with complex K 2 NiF 4 -type layered perovskite structure and I 4/ mmm space group was revealed by XRD, and the refined structure was analyzed by Rietveld analysis. Significantly improved dielectric constant was obtained in SrLa( R 0.5 Ti 0.5 )O 4 ceramics compared to the analogues SrLaAlO 4 and SrLaGaO 4 , which is attributed to the increasing normalized bond lengths of Sr/La-O(1) and Sr/La-O(2a) bonds and the higher polarizability of ( R 0.5 Ti 0.5 ) 3+ than Al 3+ and Ga 3+ . In addition, τ f converts to a positive value with the increase in dielectric constant. The following microwave dielectric properties were obtained in the dense ceramics: ε r =25.5, Qf= 72 000 GHz, τ f = 29 ppm/°C for SrLa(Mg 0.5 Ti 0.5 )O 4 , and ε r =29.4, Qf= 34 000 GHz, τ f = 38 ppm/°C for SrLa(Zn 0.5 Ti 0.5 )O 4. Furthermore, the stability of K 2 NiF 4 -type structure in MLnB O 4 [ M =Ca, Sr, Ba; Ln =Y, Sm, Nd, La; B= Al, Ga, (Mg 0.5 Ti 0.5 ), (Zn 0.5 Ti 0.5 )] compounds was discussed in relation to the tolerance factor of perovskite layer and the radius ratio of M 2+ and Ln 3+ , based on which near-zero τ f values are expected to be obtained in SrLa( R 0.5 Ti 0.5 )O 4 -SrLaAlO 4 and SrLa( R 0.5 Ti 0.5 )O 4 –SrLaGaO 4 unlimited solid solutions.

Description: The oxygen nonstoichiometry of SrFeO 3−δ was determined by solid-state Coulometric titration at 750°C-1040°C and 10 −18 ≤ p O 2 (atm)≤0.5. At T ≤850°C, a hysteresis in the oxygen nonstoichiometry (δ) isotherms indicates the presence of a two-phase region corresponding to a mixture of a perovskite and an oxygen vacancy ordered phase. The variation of δ with temperature at fixed p O 2 values and the variation of log( p O 2 ) with reciprocal temperature at fixed δ are reported. The p O 2 at the p - n transition in the electrical conductivity increases as the temperature increases, and the transition in the conductivity isotherm occurs at a composition of SrFeO 2.505(1) at 950°C and SrFeO 2.508(1) at 900°C. Since strontium exclusively occupies the A-site, a simple point defect model that assumes noninteracting defects can describe the isotherms but only at 1040°C; nonideal behavior is observed at lower temperatures. The partial molar thermodynamic quantities for oxygen in SrFeO 3−δ were determined.