Abstract
The observed high spatial variation in soil respiration (SR) and associated parameters emphasized the importance of SR heterogeneity at high latitudes and the involvement of many factors in its regulation, especially within fire-affected areas. The problem of estimating CO2 emissions during post-fire recovery in high-latitude ecosystems addresses the mutual influence of wildfires and climate change on the C cycle. Despite its importance, especially in permafrost regions because of their vulnerability, the mutual influence of these factors on CO2 dynamics has rarely been studied. Thus, we aimed to understand the dynamics of soil respiration (SR) in wildfire-affected larch recovery successions. We analyzed 16-year data (1995–2010) on SR and associated soil, biological, and environmental parameters obtained during several field studies in larch stands of different ages (0–276 years) in the Krasnoyarsk region (Russia). We observed a high variation in SR and related parameters among the study sites. SR varied from 1.77 ± 1.18 (mean ± SD) µmol CO2 m−2 s−1 in the 0–10-year-old group to 5.18 ± 2.70 µmol CO2 m−2 s−1 in the 150–276-year-old group. We found a significant increasing trend in SR in the 88–141-year old group during the study period, which was related to the significant decrease in soil water content due to the shortage of precipitation during the growing season. We observed a high spatial variation in SR, which was primarily regulated by biological and environmental factors. Different parameters were the main contributors to SR in each group, an SR was significantly affected by the inter-relationships between the studied parameters. The obtained results can be incorporated into the existing SR databases, which can allow their use in the construction and validation of C transport models as well as in monitoring global fluctuations in the C cycle in response to climate change.
Highlights
soil respiration (SR) is an essential component in C cycle in terrestrial ecosystems; there is still little information on it available in Siberia (Russia) [1]
The SR data were classified into groups according to the age of post-fire forest successions, ST5, SWC5, VegH, and SR using principal component analysis (PCA) (Figure 3), which classified the original 41 age gradations of wildfire-affected sites into four main groups (0–10, 11–54, 88–141, and 150–276 years old)
SR and associated soil, biological, and environmental parameters were studied in a long chronology of wildfire-affected larch ecosystem successions in the permafrost area of Central Siberia
Summary
SR is an essential component in C cycle in terrestrial ecosystems; there is still little information on it available in Siberia (Russia) [1]. The mutual influence of forest fires and climate change at high latitudes, especially in permafrost regions because of their proven vulnerability [7,8], complicates the estimation of CO2 emissions over post-fire recovery processes. Because of the mutual effects of wildfires, climate change, and high SR variability at high latitudes, it is complicated to develop models for simulating the response of permafrost ecosystems to these factors, which can be highly uncertain, as they require a higher frequency of field research for the validation of such models. Some studies have linked the increased frequency of fires and burned areas in boreal ecosystems to climate change [6,13,14], and concluded that their combined effects would lead to permafrost degradation [15,16]. Bergner et al (2004) [18] showed a positive effect of experimental soil warming (0.4–0.9 ◦ C) on soil C flux in post-fire soils of the boreal region (Alaska)
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