Soil carbon stocks in forest-tundra ecotones along a 500 km latitudinal gradient in northern Norway

As shrubs and trees are advancing into tundra ecosystems due to climate warming, litter input and microclimatic conditions affecting litter decomposition are likely to change. To assess how the upward shift of high-latitude treeline ecotones might affect soil organic carbon stocks (SOC), we sampled...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2022-08, Vol.12 (1), p.13358-13358, Article 13358
Main Authors: Devos, Claire Céline, Ohlson, Mikael, Næsset, Erik, Bollandsås, Ole Martin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/106/47/4113
704/158/2449
704/158/2454
704/47/4113
Birch trees
Carbon
Climate change
Ecotones
Forest soils
Forests
Global warming
Humanities and Social Sciences
Latitude
Litter
Mountain forests
multidisciplinary
Organic carbon
Organic soils
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Shrubs
Taiga & tundra
Treeline
Tundra
Vegetation
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Summary:As shrubs and trees are advancing into tundra ecosystems due to climate warming, litter input and microclimatic conditions affecting litter decomposition are likely to change. To assess how the upward shift of high-latitude treeline ecotones might affect soil organic carbon stocks (SOC), we sampled SOC stocks in the surface layers of 14 mountain birch forest-tundra ecotones along a 500 km latitudinal transect in northern Norway. Our objectives were to examine: (1) how SOC stocks differ between forest and tundra soils, and (2) the relative role of topography, vegetation and climate in explaining variability in SOC stock sizes. Overall, forest soils had higher SOC stocks (median: 2.01 kg m −2 ) than tundra soils (median: 1.33 kg m −2 ). However, SOC storage varied greatly within and between study sites. Two study sites had higher SOC stocks in the tundra than in the nearby forest, five sites had higher SOC stocks in the forest, and seven sites did not show differences in SOC stocks between forest and tundra soils. Thus, our results suggest that an upwards forest expansion does not necessarily lead to a change in SOC storage at all sites. Further, a partial least-squares regression (PLSR) model indicated that elevation, temperature, and slope may be promising indicators for SOC stock size at high-latitude treelines. Precipitation and vegetation were in comparison only of minor importance.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-022-17409-3