Controls over carbon storage and turnover in high‐latitude soils

By S. Hobbie, J. Schimel, Susan Trumbore, James R. Randerson. Global Change Biology, 2000

662 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Despite the importance of Arctic and boreal regions in the present carbon cycle, estimates of annual high‐latitude carbon fluxes vary in sign and magnitude. Without accurate estimates of current carbon fluxes from Arctic and boreal ecosystems, predicting the response of these systems to global change is daunting. A number of factors control carbon turnover in high‐latitude soils, but because they are unique to northern systems, they are mostly ignored by biogeochemical models used to predict the response of these systems to global change. Here, we review those factors. First, many northern systems are dominated by mosses, whose extremely slow decomposition is not predicted by commonly used indices of litter quality. Second, cold temperature, permafrost, waterlogging, and substrate quality interact to stabilize soil organic matter, but the relative importance of these factors, and how they respond to climate change, is unknown. Third, recent evidence suggests that biological activity occurring over winter can contribute significantly to annual soil carbon fluxes. However, the controls over this winter activity remain poorly understood. Finally, processes at the landscape scale, such as fire, permafrost dynamics, and drainage, control regional carbon fluxes, complicating the extrapolation of site‐level measurements to regional scales.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Ecology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/501be46dae89c0bf93e943f6eef6fa3bff1d69a1

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Citations in the corpus

Storage, patterns, and control of soil organic carbon and nitrogen in the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (2012, background): “Variations include low temperature, permafrost, soil texture, and waterlogging (Hobbie et al 2000, Schuur et al 2008, Yang et al 2010).”
Primary and secondary stem growth in arctic shrubs: implications for community response to environmental change (2002, background): “It is not yet clear whether the release of CO2 by increased decomposition will be greater than nutrient-stimulated increases in plant production or vice-versa (Shaver et al. 1992; Goulden et al. 1998; Hobbie et al. 2000; Shaver et al. 2000).”
Luxury consumption of soil nutrients: a possible competitive strategy in above‐ground and below‐ground biomass allocation and root morphology for slow‐growing arctic vegetation? (2003, background): “As large amounts of organic matter are stored in arctic and subarctic ecosystems, the study of below-ground processes, including plant allocation, is important from a global change perspective ( Hobbie et al . 2000 ).”
Repeated freeze-thaw cycles and their effects on biological processes in two arctic ecosystem types (2002, background): “Although much has been learned about winter CO2 emissions from arctic ecosystems in recent years, the mechanisms controlling the winter soil processes remain poorly understood (Brooks et al., 1997; Hobbie et al., 2000).”
Landscape regulation of bacterial growth efficiency in boreal freshwaters (2007, background): “Still, the organic carbon in mire litter is generally less bioavailable than in forest litter because of the vast abundance of slow-degrading bryophytic material [Hobbie et al., 2000; Turetsky, 2004].”
The role of mosses in ecosystem succession and function in Alaska's boreal forest. (2010, methodology): “Because moss litter has been shown to decompose more slowly than vascular photosynthetic tissue (e.g., Hobbie et al. 2000; Lang et al. 2009), mosses have a strong inf1uence on ecosystem C storage beyond their effects on productivity.”
Diverse Mycorrhizal Associations Enhance Terrestrial C Storage in a Global Model (2019, background): “…with observations showing that tropical soils contain relatively large stocks of mineral‐ associated organic matter and lower particulate SOM fractions (Bayer et al., 2002) while soils in higher latitudes often contain thick organic horizons and higher particulate SOM stocks (Hobbie et al., 2000).”
Ecosystem feedbacks and cascade processes: understanding their role in the responses of Arctic and alpine ecosystems to environmental change (2009, background): “…number of studies propose that predators strongly modulate herbivore numbers (Terborgh et al. 2001; Creel et al. 2005; Gunn et al. 2007) with consequences for vegetation (Beyer et al. 2007) and other ecosystem properties (Croll et al. 2005), as well as for land-use decisions (Höchtl et al. 2005).”