Direct and Terrestrial Vegetation-mediated Effects of Environmental Change on Aquatic Ecosystem Processes

Ball, Becky A.; Kominoski, John S.; Adams, Henry Foster; Jones, Stuart; Kane, Evan S.; Loecke, Terrance D.; Mahaney, Wendy M.; Martina, Jason P.; Prather, Chelse M.; Robinson, Todd M. P.; Solomon, Christopher T.

doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.5

Cited by 30 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Lake stability is the result of heterogeneous permafrost, hydraulic gradients, and lake and catchment topography (Roach et al, 2011).Though they only cover ∼2% of interior Alaska by area, lakes are an important component of the area's boreal ecosystems and their carbon cycle processes because of aquatic-terrestrial links between water bodies and the surrounding soil and vegetation. Nutrients, especially carbon and nitrogen, impact terrestrial ecosystems nearby, leading to enhanced lake productivity with increased run-off or permafrost thaw (Symstad et al, 2003;Ball et al, 2010).…”

Section: Interior Alaska Wetlands and Hydrogeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources and sinks of carbon in boreal ecosystems of interior Alaska: A review

Douglas

Jones

Hiemstra

et al. 2014

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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Boreal ecosystems store large quantities of carbon but are increasingly vulnerable to carbon loss due to disturbance and climate warming. The boreal region in Alaska and Canada, largely underlain by discontinuous permafrost, presents a challenging landscape for itemizing carbon sources and sinks in soil and vegetation. The roles of fire, forest succession, and the presence (or absence) of permafrost on carbon cycle, vegetation, and hydrologic processes have been the focus of multidisciplinary research in boreal ecosystems for the past 20 years. However, projections of a warming future climate, an increase in fire severity and extent, and the potential degradation of permafrost could lead to major landscape and carbon cycle changes over the next 20 to 50 years. To assist land managers in interior Alaska in adapting and managing for potential changes in the carbon cycle we developed this review paper by incorporating an overview of the climate, ecosystem processes, vegetation, and soil regimes. Our objective is to provide a synthesis of the most current carbon storage estimates and measurements to guide policy and land management decisions on how to best manage carbon sources and sinks. We surveyed estimates of aboveground and belowground carbon stocks for interior Alaska boreal ecosystems and summarized methane and carbon dioxide f luxes. These data have been converted into similar units to facilitate comparison across ecosystem compartments. We identify potential changes in the carbon cycle with climate change and human disturbance. A novel research question is how compounding disturbances affect carbon sources and sinks associated with boreal ecosystem processes. Finally, we provide recommendations to address the challenges facing land managers in efforts to manage carbon cycle processes. The results of this study can be used for carbon cycle management in other locations within the boreal biome which encompasses a broad distribution from 45° to 83° north.

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Section: Interior Alaska Wetlands and Hydrogeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources and sinks of carbon in boreal ecosystems of interior Alaska: A review

Douglas

Jones

Hiemstra

et al. 2014

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

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“…Long‐term disturbance from fire in fire‐sensitive vegetation, such as rainforest, can result in substantial ecosystem transformation, such as altered species composition, soil formation, and nutrient loss that can have important implications for associated water bodies (Ball et al, ; Huvane & Whitehead, ; Korhola et al, ; Leys et al, ; Morris et al, ; Smith et al, ). Fires in temperate environments, such as western Tasmania, mostly occur in the period from September to March (from spring to early autumn) and are often followed by heavy rain events (Bridle et al, ; Pemberton, ), which can remove the soil layer into water bodies, altering water geochemistry and nutrient availability (Beck, Fletcher, Kattel, et al, ; Boerner, ) and precipitating an aquatic ecosystem response (Beck, Fletcher, Gadd, et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeochemical Responses to Holocene Catchment‐Lake Dynamics in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area, Australia

et al. 2018

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Environmental changes such as climate, land use, and fire activity affect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems at multiple scales of space and time. Due to the nature of the interactions between terrestrial and aquatic dynamics, an integrated study using multiple proxies is critical for a better understanding of climate‐ and fire‐driven impacts on environmental change. Here we present a synthesis of biological and geochemical data (pollen, spores, diatoms, micro X‐ray fluorescence scanning, CN content, and stable isotopes) from Dove Lake, Tasmania, allowing us to disentangle long‐term terrestrial‐aquatic dynamics through the last 12 kyear. We found that aquatic dynamics at Dove Lake are tightly linked to vegetation shifts dictated by regional hydroclimatic variability in western Tasmania. A major shift in the diatom composition was detected at ca. 6 ka, and it was likely mediated by changes in regional terrestrial vegetation, charcoal, and iron accumulation. High rainforest abundance prior ca. 6 ka is linked to increased terrestrially derived organic matter delivery into the lake, higher dystrophy, anoxic bottom conditions, and lower light penetration depths. The shift to a landscape with a higher proportion of sclerophyll species following the intensification of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation since ca. 6 ka corresponds to a decline in terrestrial organic matter input into Dove Lake, lower dystrophy levels, higher oxygen availability, and higher light availability for algae and littoral macrophytes. This record provides new insights on terrestrial‐aquatic dynamics that could contribute to the conservation management plans in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area and in temperate high‐altitude dystrophic systems elsewhere.

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“…The study of how litter diversity affects decomposition has especially attracted interest in terrestrial systems, with some studies showing an accelerated decomposition rate when increasing litter diversity (Cardinale et al., ; Wardle, Bonner, & Nicholson, ), while others finding no or even a negative relationships (for meta‐analyses, see Gartner & Cardon, ; Srivastava et al., ). As mentioned, however, a significant portion of terrestrial litter decomposition is occurring in aquatic systems (Ball et al., ). Surprisingly, in aquatic ecosystems, the focus has often been on effects of leaf litter quality, climate or the structure of the decomposer community (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaf litter diversity and structure of microbial decomposer communities modulate litter decomposition in aquatic systems

et al. 2017

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Leaf litter decomposition is a major ecosystem process that can link aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems by flows of nutrients. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research hypothesizes that the global loss of species leads to impaired decomposition rates and thus to slower recycling of nutrients. Especially in aquatic systems, an understanding of diversity effects on litter decomposition is still incomplete. Here we conducted an experiment to test two main factors associated with global species loss that might influence leaf litter decomposition. First, we tested whether mixing different leaf species alters litter decomposition rates compared to decomposition of these species in monoculture. Second, we tested the effect of the size structure of a lotic decomposer community on decomposition rates. Overall, leaf litter identity strongly affected decomposition rates, and the observed decomposition rates matched measures of metabolic activity and microbial abundances. While we found some evidence of a positive leaf litter diversity effect on decomposition, this effect was not coherent across all litter combinations and the effect was generally additive and not synergistic. Microbial communities, with a reduced functional and trophic complexity, showed a small but significant overall reduction in decomposition rates compared to communities with the naturally complete functional and trophic complexity, highlighting the importance of a complete microbial community on ecosystem functioning. Our results suggest that top‐down diversity effects of the decomposer community on litter decomposition in aquatic systems are of comparable importance as bottom‐up diversity effects of primary producers. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12980/suppinfo is available for this article.

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Direct and Terrestrial Vegetation-mediated Effects of Environmental Change on Aquatic Ecosystem Processes

Cited by 30 publications

References 66 publications

Sources and sinks of carbon in boreal ecosystems of interior Alaska: A review

Sources and sinks of carbon in boreal ecosystems of interior Alaska: A review

Biogeochemical Responses to Holocene Catchment‐Lake Dynamics in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area, Australia

Leaf litter diversity and structure of microbial decomposer communities modulate litter decomposition in aquatic systems

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