Carbon budgets for soil and plants respond to long-term warming in an Alaskan boreal forest
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SHORT COMMUNICATION
Carbon budgets for soil and plants respond to long-term warming in an Alaskan boreal forest Charlotte J. Alster
. Steven D. Allison . Kathleen K. Treseder
Received: 8 April 2020 / Accepted: 7 August 2020 Ó Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The potential consequences of global warming for ecosystem carbon stocks are a major concern, particularly in high-latitude regions where soil carbon pools are especially large. Research on soil and plant carbon responses to warming are often based on short-term (\ 10 year) warming experiments. Furthermore, carbon budgets from boreal forests, which contain at least 10–20% of the global soil carbon pool, have shown mixed responses to warming. In this study, we measured carbon and nitrogen budgets (i.e., soil and understory vegetation carbon and nitrogen stocks) from a 13-year greenhouse warming experiment in an Alaskan boreal forest. Although there were no differences in total aboveground ? belowground pools, the carbon in the moss biomass and in the soil organic layer significantly
decreased with the warming treatment (- 88.3% and - 19.1%, respectively). Declines in moss biomass carbon may be a consequence of warming-associated drying, while shifts in the soil microbial community could be responsible for the decrease in carbon in the soil organic layer. Moreover, in response to warming, aboveground plant biomass carbon tended to increase while root biomass carbon tended to decrease, so carbon allocation may shift aboveground with warming. Overall these results suggest that permafrost-free boreal forests are susceptible to soil carbon loss with warming. Keywords Boreal forest Carbon budget Field experimental warming Global climate change Nitrogen budget
Responsible Editor: Scott Bridgham.
Introduction Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-020-00697-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. C. J. Alster (&) S. D. Allison K. K. Treseder Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. D. Allison Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
Global warming is expected to alter the amount of carbon stored in soils and plants; however, it is unclear whether warming will lead to a net loss or gain of carbon (C) (Crowther et al. 2016; van Gestel et al. 2018). Soil C stocks are the balance of inputs and outputs (Melillo et al. 2011; Lu et al. 2013). The effect of warming on soil C stocks, especially in highlatitude areas (above 60°N) with large C pools (Dixon et al. 1994; Hobbie et al. 2000), depends on the
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Biogeochemistry
magnitude of change associated with these C fluxes and on their temperature sensitivity (Knorr et al. 2005; Sistla et al. 2013). Soil carbon losses can occur due to increased microbial and enzyme activity (Schimel et al. 2004; David
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