Monitoring of CO2 fluxes on Svalbard: land use alters the gas exchange in the arctic tundra

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Abstract

The article summarized the results of long-term observations (2014–2018) of soil emissions and net CO2 fluxes (2017–2018) in natural and anthropogenically modified (AI) ecosystems of Arctic tundra on the territory of the archipelago of Svalbard (Barentsburg, 78°04′N, 14°13′E). Anthropogenic controls associated with local land use, during the period of their active impact may redouble the emissions of carbon dioxide from soil (0.111 ± 0.021 > 0.064 ± 0.011 gС m–2h–1). During the same period, the net C-balance at the sites with active land use is estimated as a source to the atmosphere. Self-recovering after human influence plots (II) demonstrate intermediate values of soil emissions of СО2 between unaffected tundra (I) and plots with active land use (III). With that they demonstrate the greatest net C-sink within the observed range of Photosynthetically Active Radiation as compared to (I) and (III). At the height of the vegetation period unaffected tundra ecosystems demonstrate a neutral net C-balance. The greatest contribution to soil emissions variance make spatial controls (they explain 56–66% of variance), whereas temporal factors are responsible for 3.8–5.5% only. Amongst spatial controls, the thickness of organogenic layer makes the greatest contribution. Inter-annual fluctuations of key factors, among which the most important are the soil moisture and temperature of the upper soil layer, both affect AI and natural ecosystems hence the spatial differences between them remain constant from year to year. According to preliminary estimates, unlike the carbon dioxide, the contribution of methane and nitrous oxide net fluxes in local ecosystems is insignificant and does not depend on human land use.

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About the authors

D. V. Karelin

Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences; Centre for Problems of Ecology and Productivity of Forests, Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

E. P. Zazovskaya

Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

V. A. Shishkov

Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

A. V. Dolgikh

Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

A. A. Sirin

Institute of Forest Science, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Uspenskoe (Moscow region)

G. G. Suvorov

Institute of Forest Science, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Uspenskoe (Moscow region)

A. I. Azovsky

Lomonosov Moscow State University

Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com

Faculty of Biology

Russian Federation, Moscow

N. I. Osokin

Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: dkarelin7@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

References

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. Long-term variability of soil CO2 emission flows for 2014–2018 in the background (1) and anthropogenically modified (2) ecotopes at the observation sites on West Svalbard Island, depending on the air temperature (3) and the humidity of the upper (0–6 cm) soil layer (4). The average and their standard errors are given.

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3. Fig. 2. The values of soil СО2 emission ranked by increase (1) in areas where active multi-year anthropogenic impact continues (N = 29), (2) in background areas (N = 23), and (3) in self-healing areas where active anthropogenic influence ceased 5–30 years ago; N = 20 (Western Svalbard, 2014–2018).

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4. Fig. 3. Comparison of estimates of the net CO2 flux in various ecosystems of the Arctic tundra of Western Svalbard depending on the power of the solar radiation flux (microeinstein m – 2s – 1) in July – August 2017 and 2018. 1 — background communities of the Arctic polygonal tundra, 2 — overgrowing (self-healing) anthropogenically modified (AI) sites, 3 - actively used AI sites. Positive values ​​of the net flow indicate its source into the atmosphere, negative values ​​indicate the flow from the atmosphere. Dotted lines are linear trends with determination coefficients.

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