Changes in the Soil-Plant Cover of the High Arctic of Eastern Siberia

Abstract

Investigations of changes in the soil and plant covers is necessary when designing technical objects—gas and oil pipelines, highways, and power lines—in order to avoid the adverse effects of these activities and to preserve vulnerable northern ecosystems. Recent changes in the soil–plant cover of the High Arctic of Eastern Siberia are directed towards its higher complexity. Chaotic bare stone debris evolve into stony polygons with “soil embryos” and patchy vegetation. Recently deglaciated areas are locally overgrown with plants on weakly developed soils of the initial stage of pedogenesis and then evolve towards the stage of mosaic plant cover with tonguing (glossic) soils. At the next stage, soil–plant complexes are formed with a continuous plant cover on soddy arctic soils. Melt water of glaciers and snow fields saturate the sediments and may induce their textural differentiation. Soil and plant cover changes in the areas with ice wedges have their own specificity. Ice wedges are typical of floodplains, where they form tetragonal complexes of moss or moss–grass tundra with gleyzems and peat soils on tops of the wedges. After the cessation of floods, ice wedges tend to degrade, and small lakes are formed in their places. Bogged tetragons are replaced by the mesophilic forb–grass tundra with gleyic soils. Under conditions of good drainage, this stage is followed by the stage of baydzharakh terrain. When the baydzharakhs are destroyed, a hummocky grass–forb tundra with soddy tundra soils appears.