Roads are a main threat to biodiversity conservation in the Amazon, in part, because roads increase access for hunters. We examine how increased landscape access by hunters may lead to cascading ...effects that influence the prey community and abundance of the jaguar (Panthera onca), the top Amazonian terrestrial predator. Understanding such ecological effects originating from anthropogenic actions is essential for conservation and management of wildlife populations in areas undergoing infrastructure development. Our study was conducted in Yasuní Biosphere Reserve, the protected area with highest potential for jaguar conservation in Ecuador, and an area both threatened by road development and inhabited by indigenous groups dependent upon bushmeat. We surveyed prey and jaguar abundance with camera traps in four sites that differed in accessibility to hunters and used site occupancy and spatially explicit capture-recapture analyses to evaluate prey occurrence and estimate jaguar density, respectively. Higher landscape accessibility to hunters was linked with lower occurrence and biomass of game, particularly white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) and collared peccary (Pecari tajacu), the primary game for hunters and prey for jaguars. Jaguar density was up to 18 times higher in the most remote site compared to the most accessible site. Our results provide a strong case for the need to: 1) consider conservation of large carnivores and other wildlife in policies about road construction in protected areas, 2) coordinate conservation initiatives with local governments so that development activities do not conflict with conservation objectives, and 3) promote development of community-based strategies for wildlife management that account for the needs of large carnivores.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Rapid Arctic warming is expected to increase global greenhouse gas concentrations as permafrost thaw exposes immense stores of frozen carbon (C) to microbial decomposition. Permafrost thaw also ...stimulates plant growth, which could offset C loss. Using data from 7 years of experimental Air and Soil warming in moist acidic tundra, we show that Soil warming had a much stronger effect on CO2 flux than Air warming. Soil warming caused rapid permafrost thaw and increased ecosystem respiration (Reco), gross primary productivity (GPP), and net summer CO2 storage (NEE). Over 7 years Reco, GPP, and NEE also increased in Control (i.e., ambient plots), but this change could be explained by slow thaw in Control areas. In the initial stages of thaw, Reco, GPP, and NEE increased linearly with thaw across all treatments, despite different rates of thaw. As thaw in Soil warming continued to increase linearly, ground surface subsidence created saturated microsites and suppressed Reco, GPP, and NEE. However Reco and GPP remained high in areas with large Eriophorum vaginatum biomass. In general NEE increased with thaw, but was more strongly correlated with plant biomass than thaw, indicating that higher Reco in deeply thawed areas during summer months was balanced by GPP. Summer CO2 flux across treatments fit a single quadratic relationship that captured the functional response of CO2 flux to thaw, water table depth, and plant biomass. These results demonstrate the importance of indirect thaw effects on CO2 flux: plant growth and water table dynamics. Nonsummer Reco models estimated that the area was an annual CO2 source during all years of observation. Nonsummer CO2 loss in warmer, more deeply thawed soils exceeded the increases in summer GPP, and thawed tundra was a net annual CO2 source.
In spring excess snow is removed from the Soil warming treatment to prevent delayed phenology and higher melt‐water input. Soil warming had a much stronger effect on CO2 flux than Air warming. Soil warming caused rapid permafrost thaw and increased ecosystem respiration (Reco), gross primary productivity (GPP), and net summer CO2 storage (NEE). Summer CO2 flux across treatments could be explained by changes in thaw, water table depth and plant biomass. In the initial stages of thaw Reco, GPP, and NEE increased linearly with thaw and plant biomass. As thaw continued to progress in Soil warming, ground surface subsidence created saturated microsites and suppressed Reco and GPP, reducing summer CO2 sink strength in the most deeply thawed areas. Adding winter Reco losses to summer NEE showed that the tundra was a net annual CO2 source as Reco in warmed and in un‐warmed winter soils exceeded the summer CO2 sink.
Large changes in the Arctic carbon balance are expected as warming linked to climate change threatens to destabilize ancient permafrost carbon stocks. The eddy covariance (EC) method is an ...established technique to quantify net losses and gains of carbon between the biosphere and atmosphere at high spatiotemporal resolution. Over the past decades, a growing network of terrestrial EC tower sites has been established across the Arctic, but a comprehensive assessment of the network's representativeness within the heterogeneous Arctic region is still lacking. This creates additional uncertainties when integrating flux data across sites, for example when upscaling fluxes to constrain pan-Arctic carbon budgets and changes therein.
Abrupt thaw could cause permafrost ecosystems to release more carbon than is predicted from gradual thaw alone. However, thermokarst feature mapping is limited in scope, and observed responses of ...carbon fluxes to abrupt thaw are variable. We developed a thermokarst detection algorithm that identifies thermokarst features from a single elevation dataset with 71.5 percent accuracy and applied it in Healy, Alaska. Additionally, we investigated the landscape-level variation in carbon dioxide and methane fluxes by extent of abrupt thaw using eddy covariance. Seven percent of the site was classified as thermokarst. Water tracks were the most extensive form of thermokarst, although small pits were much more numerous. Abrupt thaw was positively correlated with carbon uptake during the growing season, when increases in gross primary productivity outpaced increases in ecosystem respiration in vegetation-dense water tracks. However, this was outweighed by higher carbon release in thermokarst features during the nongrowing season. Additionally, abrupt thaw was positively correlated with methane production nearly year-round. Our findings support the hypothesis that abrupt thaw of permafrost carbon will contribute to the permafrost climate feedback above and beyond that associated with gradual thaw and highlights the need to map thermokarst and incorporate abrupt thaw into Earth System Models.
Abstract
Soil respiration (i.e. from soils and roots) provides one of the largest global fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO
2
) to the atmosphere and is likely to increase with warming, yet the magnitude ...of soil respiration from rapidly thawing Arctic-boreal regions is not well understood. To address this knowledge gap, we first compiled a new CO
2
flux database for permafrost-affected tundra and boreal ecosystems in Alaska and Northwest Canada. We then used the CO
2
database, multi-sensor satellite imagery, and random forest models to assess the regional magnitude of soil respiration. The flux database includes a new Soil Respiration Station network of chamber-based fluxes, and fluxes from eddy covariance towers. Our site-level data, spanning September 2016 to August 2017, revealed that the largest soil respiration emissions occurred during the summer (June–August) and that summer fluxes were higher in boreal sites (1.87 ± 0.67 g CO
2
–C m
−2
d
−1
) relative to tundra (0.94 ± 0.4 g CO
2
–C m
−2
d
−1
). We also observed considerable emissions (boreal: 0.24 ± 0.2 g CO
2
–C m
−2
d
−1
; tundra: 0.18 ± 0.16 g CO
2
–C m
−2
d
−1
) from soils during the winter (November–March) despite frozen surface conditions. Our model estimates indicated an annual region-wide loss from soil respiration of 591 ± 120 Tg CO
2
–C during the 2016–2017 period. Summer months contributed to 58% of the regional soil respiration, winter months contributed to 15%, and the shoulder months contributed to 27%. In total, soil respiration offset 54% of annual gross primary productivity (GPP) across the study domain. We also found that in tundra environments, transitional tundra/boreal ecotones, and in landscapes recently affected by fire, soil respiration often exceeded GPP, resulting in a net annual source of CO
2
to the atmosphere. As this region continues to warm, soil respiration may increasingly offset GPP, further amplifying global climate change.
In the last few decades, temperatures in the Arctic have increased twice as much as the rest of the globe. As permafrost thaws in response to this warming, large amounts of soil organic matter may ...become vulnerable to decomposition. Microbial decomposition will release carbon (C) from permafrost soils, however, warmer conditions could also lead to enhanced plant growth and C uptake. Field and modeling studies show high uncertainty in soil and plant responses to climate change but there have been few studies that reconcile field and model data to understand differences and reduce uncertainty. Here, we evaluate gross primary productivity (GPP), ecosystem respiration (Reco), and net ecosystem C exchange (NEE) from eight years of experimental soil warming in moist acidic tundra against equivalent fluxes from the Community Land Model during simulations parameterized to reflect the field conditions associated with this manipulative field experiment. Over the eight-year experimental period, soil temperatures and thaw depths increased with warming in field observations and model simulations. However, the field and model results do not agree on warming effects on water table depth; warming created wetter soils in the field and drier soils in the models. In the field, initial increases in growing season GPP, Reco, and NEE to experimentally-induced permafrost thaw created a higher C sink capacity in the first years followed by a stronger C source in years six through eight. In contrast, both models predicted linear increases in GPP, Reco, and NEE with warming. The divergence of model results from field experiments reveals the role subsidence, hydrology, and nutrient cycling play in influencing the C flux responses to permafrost thaw, a complexity that the models are not structurally able to predict, and highlight challenges associated with projecting C cycle dynamics across the Arctic.
The neotropical liana Gnetum leyboldii Gnetaceae is a gymnosperm that resembles angiosperms in wood anatomy, overall morphology, and seed dispersal mechanism. Like other woody lianas, seedlings ...germinate in the shaded forest understory and start climbing towards the canopy, being eposed to sites with etreme differences in light conditions. However, the etent of physiological and structural adjustment to contrasting light conditions in the early regeneration stages of Gnetum is unknown. To answer this question, we analyzed seedling growth and photosynthetic responses using a common garden eperiment with two light regimes: full sun and low light 20 of full sun at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. We also characterized the germination pattern of this species. We monitored one and half-month old seedlings for four months. Leaf structure finely adapted to light treatments, but gas echange properties were buffered by large seed reserves, which dominated biomass distribution about 50 of the total biomass, followed by stem 27, leaf 16 and root biomass 6 across light conditions. The presence of large seeds and the low photosynthetic rates of seedlings in both environments show that G. leyboldii is specialized to eploit deep shade. More research is needed to determine if the patterns found in G. leyboldii are typical of similar lianas that initially eploit deep-shaded understories in their ascension to the canopy.
Science, engineering, and society increasingly require integrative thinking about emerging problems in complex systems, a notion referred to as convergence science. Due to the concurrent pressures of ...two main stressors—rapid climate change and industrialization, Arctic research demands such a paradigm of scientific inquiry. This perspective represents a synthesis of a vision for its application in Arctic system studies, developed by a group of disciplinary experts consisting of social and earth system scientists, ecologists, and engineers. Our objective is to demonstrate how convergence research questions can be developed via a holistic view of system interactions that are then parsed into material links and concrete inquiries of disciplinary and interdisciplinary nature. We illustrate the application of the convergence science paradigm to several forms of Arctic stressors using the Yamal Peninsula of the Russian Arctic as a representative natural laboratory with a biogeographic gradient from the forest‐tundra ecotone to the high Arctic.
Plain Language Summary
This paper represents a synthesis of conceptual analyses, case study analyses, and practical thoughts on the application of convergence science in Arctic change studies. During a virtual workshop in 2020, a diverse, multi‐national team of authors consisting of social scientists, engineers, earth system scientists, and ecologists came together to formulate broad, scientifically, and societally important questions on how the Arctic system in the Yamal Peninsula of Western Siberia responds to pressures of rapidly changing climate and increasing industrialization. The team “engineered” a novel approach for expert (representing a disciplinary domain) and non‐expert (representatives of other disciplines) communication and at the workshop conclusion developed several convergence science questions of high appeal. Three of such questions are presented in this manuscript to illustrate how the search and identification of appropriate mechanistic linkages are critical to the development of system‐level understanding of stressor impact propagation. The need to understand underlying disciplinary and cross‐disciplinary mechanisms connecting Arctic system elements is viewed to be an inherent part of the convergence science approach. Through pursuit of such understanding, the approach naturally leads to other novel emerging questions, thereby stimulating further application of the process of integrative thinking.
Key Points
Arctic research demands convergence science as essential method to understand impacts from novel stressors
An integrative approach is developed by a diverse team to formulate questions that cannot be fully addressed within disciplinary studies
A convergence science analysis is illustrated for three questions applicable to Yamal, Russian Arctic, a microcosm of the changing Arctic
▶ Understanding the early establishment requirements and performance of tropical tree seedlings is essential to ensuring the success of restoration plantings. ▶ Choosing light demanding species that ...can tolerate grass competition may help ensure success in the early stage of restoration. ▶ The present study shows that native species can have high survival under competition from established pasture grasses, but their performance may vary depending on the amount of light present.
Understanding the early establishment requirements and performance of tropical tree seedlings is essential to ensuring the success of restoration plantings. This study was designed to characterize growth and light requirements of six common neotropical tree species
Pseudosamanea guachapele (Fabaceae),
Tabebuia impetiginosa (Bignoniaceae),
Ceiba pentandra (Bombacaceae),
Pachira quinata (Bombacaceae),
Dalbergia retusa (Fabaceae), and
Tabebuia rosea (Bignoniaceae) in an abandoned pasture under contrasting light environments and grass competition. Field studies were conducted in the pastures of the Santa Ana Conservation Center in Costa Rica. Two differing grass competition sites were selected, one dominated by a tall grass,
Hyparrhenia rufa and another dominated by a short grass,
Cynodon mlenfluensis. Three light treatments were created (2, 37 and 100% light) using either neutral shade cloth (2 and 37%) or no shade cloth (100%). Growth characteristics and biomass partitioning of the seedlings were measured. Species differed in their relative growth rates (RGRs). The light
×
species interaction was significant at both sites. While all species had similar performance under 100% light on both short grass and tall grass sites, species growth differences were evident under 37 and 2% light levels. For example, at the short grass site,
T. rosea had higher RGR than
D. retusa and
P. quinata under 2% light whereas both
Tabebuia species performed better than other species at the tall grass site. The general trend was to increase root mass ratio and decrease leaf mass ratio with increasing levels of light. As an initial step for restoring abandoned pasture lands we recommend using all these species in direct and moderate light conditions. Incorporating all species will create a more heterogeneous environment. Choosing light demanding species that can tolerate grass competition may help ensure success in the early stage of restoration.
Perennially frozen soil in high latitude ecosystems (permafrost) currently stores 1330–1580 Pg of carbon (C). As these ecosystems warm, the thaw and decomposition of permafrost is expected to release ...large amounts of C to the atmosphere. Fortunately, losses from the permafrost C pool will be partially offset by increased plant productivity. The degree to which plants are able to sequester C, however, will be determined by changing nitrogen (N) availability in these thawing soil profiles. N availability currently limits plant productivity in tundra ecosystems but plant access to N is expected improve as decomposition increases in speed and extends to deeper soil horizons. To evaluate the relationship between permafrost thaw and N availability, we monitored N cycling during 5 years of experimentally induced permafrost thaw at the Carbon in Permafrost Experimental Heating Research (CiPEHR) project. Inorganic N availability increased significantly in response to deeper thaw and greater soil moisture induced by Soil warming. This treatment also prompted a 23% increase in aboveground biomass and a 49% increase in foliar N pools. The sedge Eriophorum vaginatum responded most strongly to warming: this species explained 91% of the change in aboveground biomass during the 5 year period. Air warming had little impact when applied alone, but when applied in combination with Soil warming, growing season soil inorganic N availability was significantly reduced. These results demonstrate that there is a strong positive relationship between the depth of permafrost thaw and N availability in tundra ecosystems but that this relationship can be diminished by interactions between increased thaw, warmer air temperatures, and higher levels of soil moisture. Within 5 years of permafrost thaw, plants actively incorporate newly available N into biomass but C storage in live vascular plant biomass is unlikely to be greater than losses from deep soil C pools.
PDF
