Severe Fires Drive Shifts from Black Spruce to Broadleaf Dominance

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  Severe late summer fires consume the soil organic layer, allowing deciduous tree species, such as aspen and birch, to establish at high densities. The fast decomposing litter and rapid evapotranspiration of deciduous trees maintain a thinner, drier organic layer that does not sustain spruce forests or insulate permafrost. This ecosystem state change alters an… Read more »

Thawing Permafrost and Increasing Wildfires Will Likely Amplify Climate Warming

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Measurements across latitudinal gradients, field experiments, and laboratory incubations all point to significant releases of CO2 and CH4 from soils that have been frozen or waterlogged since the last ice age. Over decadal time scales, this carbon release could overwhelm increased plant carbon uptake. In a warmer world, the boreal forest could be transformed into… Read more »

Browsing by Large Herbivores Influenced Ecosystem Function

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Browsing by moose and snowshoe hares affects plant species composition, growth, population dynamics, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem function at both stand and landscape scales, causing effects that can persist for decades. Both species selectively consume willows, leading to the dominance of alder, an important nitrogen-fixing species that is chemically defended against herbivory. Snowshoe hare abundance… Read more »

Small Water Bodies with Big CO2 Effects

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water-pocked landscape of coastal tundra

Credit: Via @ArcticLagoons on Twitter Arctic coastal watershed systems are some of the most threatened regions on Earth and have undergone substantial climatic, physical, and biological change with the warming of our Earth. Now, researchers at the Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER site have discovered that small coastal water bodies, especially ponds, are releasing carbon to… Read more »

Sea level rise impacting nitrogen cycle in tidal freshwater marshes

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GCE LTER researchers simulated the effects of long term (press) and short term (pulse) salt water intrusions in tidal freshwater marshes. Press conditions were more disastrous for the ecosystem, altering the N cycle, while the landscape was able to recover from pulse conditions.

Legacy carbon takes a hit as younger forest stands burn

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Aftermath of forest fire

In 2014, massive wildfires swept through the Northwest Territories of Canada, burning over two million hectares of boreal forest, as well as the highly organic soils on which they stood. Researchers with the Bonanza Creek LTER used this unplanned experiment to learn whether the carbon released from burned land had been recently deposited or if… Read more »

Understanding Farmer Attitudes Can Help Address Water Quality Issues

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satellite view of gulf of mexico dead zone

The Gulf of Mexico dead zone is predicted to be a near record size in 2019. By the end of summer, the hypoxic region at the mouth of the Mississippi River is expected to occupy over 22,000 square kilometers—an area the size of Massachusetts. The culprit? Nitrogen-based fertilizers applied to crops across the Midwest that… Read more »

Can corals ride the tide of climate change?

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Damselfish and their coral host (Pocillopora eydouxi).

Researchers at Mo’orea LTER did not observe evidence that corals acclimatize to ocean acidification, but they did observe that some are more sensitive to it than others.

When it Rains, it’s Gonna Pour

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Fires and floods are becoming all too common for coastal Southern California residents — but are these ‘extreme’ events likely to become even more frequent? Answering this question requires a comprehensive understanding of precipitation patterns in the region and how they are likely to change in the coming decades. Most previous research on climate change… Read more »

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