Claudia I. Czimczik

Drought sensitivity of the Amazon rainforest

Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events. Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 × 1015 to 1.6 × 1015 grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change.

Comparative analysis of black carbon in soils

Black carbon (BC), produced by incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and vegetation, occurs ubiquitously in soils and sediments. BC exists as a continuum from partly charred material to highly graphitized soot particles, with no general agreement on clear-cut boundaries of definition or analysis. In a comparative analysis, we measured BC forms in eight soil samples by six established methods. All methods involved removal of the non-BC components from the sample by thermal or chemical means or a combination of both. The remaining carbon, operationally defined as BC, was quantified via mass balance, elemental composition or by exploiting benzenecarboxylic acids as molecular markers or applying 13C MAS NMR (magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy. BC concentrations measured for individual samples vary over 2 orders of magnitude (up to a factor of 571). One possible explanation for this wide range of results is that the individual BC methods rely on operational definitions with clear-cut but different boundaries and developed for specific scientific questions, whereas BC represents a continuum of materials with widely contrasting physicochemical properties. Thus the methods are inherently designed to analytically determine different parts of the continuum, and it is crucial to know how measurements made by different techniques relate to each other. It is clear from this preliminary comparative analysis that a collection of BC reference materials should be established as soon as possible 1 ) to ensure long-term intralaboratory and interlaboratory data quality and 2) to facilitate comparative analyses between different analytical techniques and scientific approaches

Nonstructural Carbon in Woody Plants

Nonstructural carbon (NSC) provides the carbon and energy for plant growth and survival. In woody plants, fundamental questions about NSC remain unresolved: Is NSC storage an active or passive process? Do older NSC reserves remain accessible to the plant? How is NSC depletion related to mortality risk? Herein we review conceptual and mathematical models of NSC dynamics, recent observations and experiments at the organismal scale, and advances in plant physiology that have provided a better understanding of the dynamics of woody plant NSC. Plants preferentially use new carbon but can access decade-old carbon when the plant is stressed or physically damaged. In addition to serving as a carbon and energy source, NSC plays important roles in phloem transport, osmoregulation, and cold tolerance, but how plants regulate these competing roles and NSC depletion remains elusive. Moving forward requires greater synthesis of models and data and integration across scales from -omics to ecology.

How surface fire in Siberian Scots pine forests affects soil organic carbon in the forest floor: Stocks, molecular structure, and conversion to black carbon (charcoal)

[1] In boreal forests, fire is a frequent disturbance and converts soil organic carbon (OC) to more degradation-resistant aromatic carbon, i.e., black carbon (BC) which might act as a long-term atmospheric-carbon sink. Little is known on the effects of fires on boreal soil OC stocks and molecular composition. We studied how a surface fire affected the composition of the forest floor of Siberian Scots pine forests by comparing the bulk elemental composition, molecular structure (13C-MAS NMR), and the aromatic carbon fraction (BC and potentially interfering constituents like tannins) of unburned and burned forest floor. Fire reduced the mass of the forest floor by 60%, stocks of inorganic elements (Si, Al, Fe, K, Ca, Na, Mg, Mn) by 30–50%, and of OC, nitrogen, and sulfur by 40–50%. In contrast to typical findings from temperate forests, unburned OC consisted mainly of (di-)O-alkyl (polysaccharides) and few aromatic structures, probably due to dominant input of lichen biomass. Fire converted OC into alkyl and aromatic structures, the latter consisting of heterocyclic macromolecules and small clusters of condensed carbon. The small cluster size explained the small BC concentrations determined using a degradative molecular marker method. Fire increased BC stocks (16 g kg−1 OC) by 40% which translates into a net-conversion rate of 0.7% (0.35% of net primary production) unburned OC to BC. Here, however, BC was not a major fraction of soil OC pool in unburned or burned forest floor, either due to rapid in situ degradation or relocation.

Seasonal dynamics and age of stemwood nonstructural carbohydrates in temperate forest trees.

Nonstructural carbohydrate reserves support tree metabolism and growth when current photosynthates are insufficient, offering resilience in times of stress. We monitored stemwood nonstructural carbohydrate (starch and sugars) concentrations of the dominant tree species at three sites in the northeastern United States. We estimated the mean age of the starch and sugars in a subset of trees using the radiocarbon ((14) C) bomb spike. With these data, we then tested different carbon (C) allocation schemes in a process-based model of forest C cycling. We found that the nonstructural carbohydrates are both highly dynamic and about a decade old. Seasonal dynamics in starch (two to four times higher in the growing season, lower in the dormant season) mirrored those of sugars. Radiocarbon-based estimates indicated that the mean age of the starch and sugars in red maple (Acer rubrum) was 7-14 yr. A two-pool (fast and slow cycling reserves) model structure gave reasonable estimates of the size and mean residence time of the total NSC pool, and greatly improved model predictions of interannual variability in woody biomass increment, compared with zero- or one-pool structures used in the majority of existing models. This highlights the importance of nonstructural carbohydrates in the context of forest ecosystem carbon cycling.

An Uncertain Future for Soil Carbon

A detailed knowledge of how carbon cycles through soils is crucial for predicting future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

Carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions in urban turf

Undisturbed grasslands can sequester significant quantities of organic carbon (OC) in soils. Irrigation and fertilization enhance CO2sequestration in managed turfgrass ecosystems but can also increase emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs). To better understand the GHG balance of urban turf, we measured OC sequestration rates and emission of N2O (a GHG ∼ 300 times more effective than CO2) in Southern California, USA. We also estimated CO2 emissions generated by fuel combustion, fertilizer production, and irrigation. We show that turf emits significant quantities of N2O (0.1–0.3 g N m−2 yr−1) associated with frequent fertilization. In ornamental lawns this is offset by OC sequestration (140 g C m−2 yr−1), while in athletic fields, there is no OC sequestration because of frequent surface restoration. Large indirect emissions of CO2 associated with turfgrass management make it clear that OC sequestration by turfgrass cannot mitigate GHG emissions in cities.

Distribution and mixing of old and new nonstructural carbon in two temperate trees

We know surprisingly little about whole-tree nonstructural carbon (NSC; primarily sugars and starch) budgets. Even less well understood is the mixing between recent photosynthetic assimilates (new NSC) and previously stored reserves. And, NSC turnover times are poorly constrained. We characterized the distribution of NSC in the stemwood, branches, and roots of two temperate trees, and we used the continuous label offered by the radiocarbon (carbon-14, 14C) bomb spike to estimate the mean age of NSC in different tissues. NSC in branches and the outermost stemwood growth rings had the 14C signature of the current growing season. However, NSC in older aboveground and belowground tissues was enriched in 14C, indicating that it was produced from older assimilates. Radial patterns of 14C in stemwood NSC showed strong mixing of NSC across the youngest growth rings, with limited ‘mixing in’ of younger NSC to older rings. Sugars in the outermost five growth rings, accounting for two-thirds of the stemwood pool, had a mean age < 1 yr, whereas sugars in older growth rings had a mean age > 5 yr. Our results are thus consistent with a previously-hypothesized two-pool (‘fast’ and ‘slow’ cycling NSC) model structure. These pools appear to be physically distinct.

Controls on methane released through ebullition in peatlands affected by permafrost degradation

Permafrost thaw in peat plateaus leads to the flooding of surface soils and the formation of collapse scar bogs, which have the potential to be large emitters of methane (CH4) from surface peat as well as deeper, previously frozen, permafrost carbon (C). We used a network of bubble traps, permanently installed 20cm and 60cm beneath the moss surface, to examine controls on ebullition from three collapse bogs in interior Alaska. Overall, ebullition was dominated by episodic events that were associated with changes in atmospheric pressure, and ebullition was mainly a surface process regulated by both seasonal ice dynamics and plant phenology. The majority (>90%) of ebullition occurred in surface peat layers, with little bubble production in deeper peat. During periods of peak plant biomass, bubbles contained acetate-derived CH4 dominated (>90%) by modern C fixed from the atmosphere following permafrost thaw. Post-senescence, the contribution of CH4 derived from thawing permafrost C was more variable and accounted for up to 22% (on average 7%), in the most recently thawed site. Thus, the formation of thermokarst features resulting from permafrost thaw in peatlands stimulates ebullition and CH4 release both by creating flooded surface conditions conducive to CH4 production and bubbling as well as by exposing thawing permafrost C to mineralization. ©2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Geology. An uncertain future for soil carbon.

A detailed knowledge of how carbon cycles through soils is crucial for predicting future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.