Тип публикации: статья из журнала

Год издания: 2015

Идентификатор DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2446

Ключевые слова: greenhouse gas, methane, permafrost, shrub, thawing, tundra, vegetation dynamics, vulnerability, warming, Arctic, Siberia

Аннотация: Arctic tundra ecosystems are warming almost twice as fast as the global average. Permafrost thaw and the resulting release of greenhouse gases from decomposing soil organic carbon have the potential to accelerate climate warming. In recent decades, Arctic tundra ecosystems have changed rapidly, including expansion of woody vegetatiПоказать полностьюon, in response to changing climate conditions. How such vegetation changes contribute to stabilization or destabilization of the permafrost is unknown. Here we present six years of field observations in a shrub removal experiment at a Siberian tundra site. Removing the shrub part of the vegetation initiated thawing of ice-rich permafrost, resulting in collapse of the originally elevated shrub patches into waterlogged depressions within five years. This thaw pond development shifted the plots from a methane sink into a methane source. The results of our field experiment demonstrate the importance of the vegetation cover for protection of the massive carbon reservoirs stored in the permafrost and illustrate the strong vulnerability of these tundra ecosystems to perturbations. If permafrost thawing can more frequently trigger such local permafrost collapse, methane-emitting wet depressions could become more abundant in the lowland tundra landscape, at the cost of permafrost-stabilizing low shrub vegetation.

Журнал: Nature Climate Change

Выпуск журнала: Vol. 5, Is. 1

Номера страниц: 67-70

• Nauta A.L. (Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3A, Wageningen, Netherlands)
• Heijmans M.M.P.D. (Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3A, Wageningen, Netherlands)
• Blok D. (Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark)
• Limpens J. (Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3A, Wageningen, Netherlands)
• Elberling B. (Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark)
• Gallagher A. (Earth and Climate Cluster, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
• Li B. (Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3A, Wageningen, Netherlands)
• Petrov R.E. (Institute for Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 41 Lenin Avenue, Yakutsk, Russian Federation, North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, Russian Federation)
• Maximov T.C. (Institute for Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 41 Lenin Avenue, Yakutsk, Russian Federation, North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, Russian Federation)
• Van Huissteden J. (Earth and Climate Cluster, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
• Berendse F. (Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3A, Wageningen, Netherlands)

• Scopus