Abstract
In contrast to the well-studied West Siberian sector of frozen bogs in the Russian Arctic, the frozen mound bogs (so-called “palsas”) on the highlands of Southern Siberia have not yet been studied, but they are suspected to be even more sensitive to ongoing climate change. This article provides the pilot study on palsa mire Kara-Sug in the highland areas of Western Sayan mountain system, Tuva Republic. The study focuses on the current state of palsa mire and surrounding landscapes, providing wide range of ecological characteristics while describing ongoing transformations of natural landscapes under a changing climate. The study used a variety of field and laboratory methods: the integrated landscape-ecological approach, the study of peat deposits, geobotanical analysis, and modern analysis of the chemical composition of water, peat, and soils. The study shows that highland palsa mires are distinguished by their compactness and high variety of cryogenic landforms leading to high floristic and ecosystem diversity compared with lowland palsa mires. This information brings new insights and contributes to a better understanding of extrazonal highland palsa mires, which remain a “white spot” in the global environmental sciences.
Highlights
Palsa mire is poorly drained lowland underlain by organic sediments, which contains perennially frozen peat bodies: peat plateau or peat mounds [1]
The study shows that highland palsa mires are distinguished by their compactness and high variety of cryogenic landforms leading to high floristic and ecosystem diversity compared with lowland palsa mires
We present the first results of the field studies of the current state and on-going transformations of the unique palsa-type mire ecosystems in the south of the geographical region of Middle Siberia, the first ever accomplished in the Russian Sayan Mountains in the Tuva Republic, Russian Federation
Summary
Palsa mire (from Finnish—palsa) is poorly drained lowland underlain by organic sediments, which contains perennially frozen peat bodies: peat plateau or peat mounds [1]. A wide range of recent studies have convinced the noticeable and relatively rapid transformations of permafrost mire landforms, leading to dramatic decrease in an areal extent of frozen plateau peatlands and heaving mounds (palsas), as observed in the Northern Eurasia [1,3,7,8,16,27] and in the northern part of North America [28]. We present the first results of the field studies of the current state and on-going transformations of the unique palsa-type mire ecosystems (and a wide range of surrounding natural landscapes) in the south of the geographical region of Middle Siberia (a part of Central Asia), the first ever accomplished in the Russian Sayan Mountains in the Tuva Republic, Russian Federation. Ak-Sug river Adyr-Khem river Untitled Thermokarst Lake 1 Untitled Thermokarst Lake 2
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