Shaver Gaius R.

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Shaver
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Gaius R.
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  • Article
    Long-term experimental warming and nutrient additions increase productivity in tall deciduous shrub tundra
    (Ecological Society of America, 2014-06-19) DeMarco, Jennie ; Mack, Michelle C. ; Bret-Harte, M. Syndonia ; Burton, Mark ; Shaver, Gaius R.
    Warming Arctic temperatures can drive changes in vegetation structure and function directly by stimulating plant growth or indirectly by stimulating microbial decomposition of organic matter and releasing more nutrients for plant uptake and growth. The arctic biome is currently increasing in deciduous shrub cover and this increase is expected to continue with climate warming. However, little is known how current deciduous shrub communities will respond to future climate induced warming and nutrient increase. We examined the plant and ecosystem response to a long-term (18 years) nutrient addition and warming experiment in an Alaskan arctic tall deciduous shrub tundra ecosystem to understand controls over plant productivity and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage in shrub tundra ecosystems. In addition, we used a meta-analysis approach to compare the treatment effect size for aboveground biomass among seven long-term studies conducted across multiple plant community types within the Arctic. We found that biomass, productivity, and aboveground N pools increased with nutrient additions and warming, while species diversity decreased. Both nutrient additions and warming caused the dominant functional group, deciduous shrubs, to increase biomass and proportional C and N allocation to aboveground stems but decreased allocation to belowground stems. For all response variables except soil C and N pools, effects of nutrients plus warming were largest. Soil C and N pools were highly variable and we could not detect any response to the treatments. The biomass response to warming and fertilization in tall deciduous shrub tundra was greater than moist acidic and moist non-acidic tundra and more similar to the biomass response of wet sedge tundra. Our data suggest that in a warmer and more nutrient-rich Arctic, tall deciduous shrub tundra will have greater total deciduous shrub biomass and a higher proportion of woody tissue that has a longer residence time, with a lower proportion of C and N allocated to belowground stems.
  • Preprint
    Home site advantage in two long-lived arctic plant species : results from two 30-year reciprocal transplant studies
    ( 2012-03-30) Bennington, Cynthia C. ; Fetcher, Ned ; Vavrek, Milan C. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Cummings, Kelli J. ; McGraw, James B.
    Reciprocal transplant experiments designed to quantify genetic and environmental effects on phenotype are powerful tools for the study of local adaptation. For long-lived species, especially those in habitats with short growing seasons, however, the cumulative effects of many years in novel environments may be required for fitness differences and phenotypic changes to accrue. We returned to two separate reciprocal transplant experiments thirty years after their initial establishment in interior Alaska to ask whether patterns of differentiation observed in the years immediately following transplant have persisted. We also asked whether earlier hypotheses about the role of plasticity in buffering against the effects of selection on foreign genotypes were supported. We censused survival and flowering in three transplant gardens created along a snowbank gradient for a dwarf shrub (Dryas octopetala) and six gardens created along a latitudinal gradient for a tussock-forming sedge (Eriophorum vaginatum). For both species, we used an analysis of variance to detect fitness advantages for plants transplanted back into their home site relative to those transplanted into foreign sites. For D. octopetala, the original patterns of local adaptation observed in the decade following transplant appeared even stronger after three decades, with the complete elimination of foreign ecotypes in both fellfield and snowbed environments. For E. vaginatum, differential survival of populations was not evident 13 years after transplant, but was clearly evident 17 years later. There was no evidence that plasticity was associated with increased survival of foreign populations in novel sites for either D. octopetala or E. vaginatum. Synthesis. We conclude that local adaptation can be strong, but nevertheless remain undetected or underestimated in short-term experiments. Such genetically-based population differences limit the ability of plant populations to respond to a changing climate.
  • Article
    Contrasting soil thermal responses to fire in Alaskan tundra and boreal forest
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2015-02-24) Jiang, Yueyang ; Rocha, Adrian V. ; O’Donnell, Jonathan A. ; Drysdale, Jessica A. ; Rastetter, Edward B. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Zhuang, Qianlai
    Recent fire activity throughout Alaska has increased the need to understand postfire impacts on soils and permafrost vulnerability. Our study utilized data and modeling from a permafrost and ecosystem gradient to develop a mechanistic understanding of the short- and long-term impacts of tundra and boreal forest fires on soil thermal dynamics. Fires influenced a variety of factors that altered the surface energy budget, soil moisture, and the organic-layer thickness with the overall effect of increasing soil temperatures and thaw depth. The postfire thickness of the soil organic layer and its impact on soil thermal conductivity was the most important factor determining postfire soil temperatures and thaw depth. Boreal and tundra ecosystems underlain by permafrost experienced smaller postfire soil temperature increases than the nonpermafrost boreal forest from the direct and indirect effects of permafrost on drainage, soil moisture, and vegetation flammability. Permafrost decreased the loss of the insulating soil organic layer, decreased soil drying, increased surface water pooling, and created a significant heat sink to buffer postfire soil temperature and thaw depth changes. Ecosystem factors also played a role in determining postfire thaw depth with boreal forests taking several decades longer to recover their soil thermal properties than tundra. These factors resulted in tundra being less sensitive to postfire soil thermal changes than the nonpermafrost boreal forest. These results suggest that permafrost and soil organic carbon will be more vulnerable to fire as climate warms.
  • Article
    Nitrate is an important nitrogen source for Arctic tundra plants
    (National Academy of Sciences, 2018-03-27) Liu, Xue-Yan ; Koba, Keisuke ; Koyama, Lina A. ; Hobbie, Sarah E. ; Weiss, Marissa S. ; Inagaki, Yoshiyuki ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Giblin, Anne E. ; Hobara, Satoru ; Nadelhoffer, Knute J. ; Sommerkorn, Martin ; Rastetter, Edward B. ; Kling, George W. ; Laundre, James A. ; Yano, Yuriko ; Makabe, Akiko ; Yano, Midori ; Liu, Cong-Qiang
    Plant nitrogen (N) use is a key component of the N cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. The supply of N to plants affects community species composition and ecosystem processes such as photosynthesis and carbon (C) accumulation. However, the availabilities and relative importance of different N forms to plants are not well understood. While nitrate (NO3−) is a major N form used by plants worldwide, it is discounted as a N source for Arctic tundra plants because of extremely low NO3− concentrations in Arctic tundra soils, undetectable soil nitrification, and plant-tissue NO3− that is typically below detection limits. Here we reexamine NO3− use by tundra plants using a sensitive denitrifier method to analyze plant-tissue NO3−. Soil-derived NO3− was detected in tundra plant tissues, and tundra plants took up soil NO3− at comparable rates to plants from relatively NO3−-rich ecosystems in other biomes. Nitrate assimilation determined by 15N enrichments of leaf NO3− relative to soil NO3− accounted for 4 to 52% (as estimated by a Bayesian isotope-mixing model) of species-specific total leaf N of Alaskan tundra plants. Our finding that in situ soil NO3− availability for tundra plants is high has important implications for Arctic ecosystems, not only in determining species compositions, but also in determining the loss of N from soils via leaching and denitrification. Plant N uptake and soil N losses can strongly influence C uptake and accumulation in tundra soils. Accordingly, this evidence of NO3− availability in tundra soils is crucial for predicting C storage in tundra.
  • Preprint
    Vegetation shifts observed in arctic tundra 1.5 decades after fire
    ( 2012-01-27) Barrett, Kirsten ; Rocha, Adrian V. ; van de Weg, Martine J. ; Shaver, Gaius R.
    With anticipated climate change, tundra fires are expected to occur more frequently in the future, but data on the longer term effects of fire on tundra vegetation composition are scarce. This study therefore addresses changes in vegetation structure that have persisted for 17 years after a tundra fire on the North Slope of Alaska. Fire-related shifts in vegetation composition were assessed from remote sensing imagery and ground observations of the burn scar and an adjacent control site. Early-season remotely sensed imagery from the burn scar exhibits a low vegetation index compared to the control site, while the late-season signal is slightly higher. The range and maximum vegetation index is greater in the burn scar, although the mean annual values do not differ among the sites. Ground observations revealed a greater abundance of graminoid species and an absence of Betula nana in the post-fire tundra sites, which is a likely explanation for the spectral differences observed in the remotely sensed imagery. Additional differences in vegetation composition in the burn scar include less moss cover and a greater cover of herbaceous species. The partial replacement of tundra by graminoid-dominated ecosystems has been predicted by the ALFRESCO model of disturbance, climate, and vegetation succession.
  • Preprint
    Nitrogen dynamics in arctic tundra soils of varying age : differential responses to fertilization and warming
    ( 2013-03) Yano, Yuriko ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Rastetter, Edward B. ; Giblin, Anne E. ; Laundre, James A.
    In the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, Alaska, a series of glacial retreats has created a landscape that varies widely in time since deglaciation (= soil age), from ~10k years to more than 2M years. Productivity of the moist tundra that covers most of this landscape is generally N-limited, but varies widely, as do plant-species composition and key soil properties such as pH. These differences might be altered in the future because of the projected increase in N availability under a warmer climate. We hypothesized that future changes in productivity and vegetation composition across soil ages might be mediated through changes in N availability. To test this hypothesis, we compared readily available-N (water-soluble ammonium, nitrate, and amino acids), moderately-available N (soluble proteins), hydrolysable-N, and total-N pools across three tussock-tundra landscapes with soil ages ranging from 11.5k to 300k years. We also compared the effects of long-term fertilization and warming on these N pools for the two younger sites, in order to assess whether the impacts of warming and increased N availability differ by soil age. Readily available N was largest at the oldest site, and amino acids (AA) accounted for 80-89 % of this N. At the youngest site, however, inorganic N constituted the majority (80-97%) of total readily-available N. This variation reflected the large differences in plant functional-group composition and soil chemical properties. Long-term (8-16 years) fertilization increased soluble inorganic N by 20-100 fold at the intermediate-age site, but only by 2-3 fold at the youngest-soil site. Warming caused small and inconsistent changes in the soil C:N ratio and soluble AA, but only in soils beneath Eriophorum vaginatum, the dominant tussock-forming sedge. These differential responses suggest that the impacts of warmer climates on these tundra ecosystems are more complex than simply elevated N mineralization, and that the response of the N cycling might differ strongly depending on the ecosystem’s soil age, initial soil properties, and plant-community composition.
  • Preprint
    Terrestrial C sequestration at elevated CO2 and temperature : the role of dissolved organic N loss
    ( 2004-06-07) Rastetter, Edward B. ; Perakis, Steven S. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Agren, Goran I.
    We used a simple model of carbon–nitrogen (C–N) interactions in terrestrial ecosystems to examine the responses to elevated CO2 and to elevated CO2 plus warming in ecosystems that had the same total nitrogen loss but that differed in the ratio of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) to dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) loss. We postulate that DIN losses can be curtailed by higher N demand in response to elevated CO2, but that DON losses cannot. We also examined simulations in which DON losses were held constant, were proportional to the amount of soil organic matter, were proportional to the soil C:N ratio, or were proportional to the rate of decomposition. We found that the mode of N loss made little difference to the short-term (<60 years) rate of carbon sequestration by the ecosystem, but high DON losses resulted in much lower carbon sequestration in the long term than did low DON losses. In the short term, C sequestration was fueled by an internal redistribution of N from soils to vegetation and by increases in the C:N ratio of soils and vegetation. This sequestration was about three times larger with elevated CO2 and warming than with elevated CO2 alone. After year 60, C sequestration was fueled by a net accumulation of N in the ecosystem, and the rate of sequestration was about the same with elevated CO2 and warming as with elevated CO2 alone. With high DON losses, the ecosystem either sequestered C slowly after year 60 (when DON losses were constant or proportional to soil organic matter) or lost C (when DON losses were proportional to the soil C:N ratio or to decomposition). We conclude that changes in long-term C sequestration depend not only on the magnitude of N losses, but also on the form of those losses.
  • Preprint
    Contrasting effects of long term versus short-term nitrogen addition on photosynthesis and respiration in the Arctic
    ( 2013-07) van de Weg, Martine J. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Salmon, Verity G.
    We examined the effects of short (<1 to 4 years) and long-term (22 years) nitrogen (N) and/or phosphorus (P) addition on the foliar CO2 exchange parameters of the arctic species Betula nana and Eriophorum vaginatum in northern Alaska. Measured variables included: the carboxylation efficiency of Rubisco (Vcmax), electron transport capacity (Jmax), dark respiration (Rd), chlorophyll a and b content (Chl), and total foliar N (N). For both B. nana and E. vaginatum, foliar N increased by 20-50% as a consequence of 1 to 22 years of fertilisation, respectively, and for B. nana foliar Nincrease was consistent throughout the whole canopy. However, despite this large increase in foliar N, no significant changes in Vcmax and Jmax were observed. In contrast, Rd was significantly higher (>25%) in both species after 22 years of N addition, but not in the shorter-term treatments. Surprisingly, Chl only increased in both species the first year of fertilisation (i.e. the first season of nutrients applied), but not in the longer-term treatments. These results imply that: 1) Under current (low) N availability, these Arctic species either already optimize their photosynthetic capacity per leaf area, or are limited by other nutrients; 2) Observed increases in Arctic NEE and GPP with increased nutrient availability are caused by structural changes like increased leaf area index, rather than increased foliar photosynthetic capacity and 3) Short-term effects (1-4 years) of nutrient addition cannot always be extrapolated to a larger time scale, which emphasizes the importance of long-term ecological experiments.
  • Article
    Burn severity influences postfire CO2 exchange in Arctic tundra
    (Ecological Society of America, 2011-03) Rocha, Adrian V. ; Shaver, Gaius R.
    Burned landscapes present several challenges to quantifying landscape carbon balance. Fire scars are composed of a mosaic of patches that differ in burn severity, which may influence postfire carbon budgets through damage to vegetation and carbon stocks. We deployed three eddy covariance towers along a burn severity gradient (i.e., severely burned, moderately burned, and unburned tundra) to monitor postfire net ecosystem exchange of CO2 (NEE) within the large 2007 Anaktuvuk River fire scar in Alaska, USA, during the summer of 2008. Remote sensing data from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) was used to assess the spatial representativeness of the tower sites and parameterize a NEE model that was used to scale tower measurements to the landscape. The tower sites had similar vegetation and reflectance properties prior to the Anaktuvuk River fire and represented the range of surface conditions observed within the fire scar during the 2008 summer. Burn severity influenced a variety of surface properties, including residual organic matter, plant mortality, and vegetation recovery, which in turn determined postfire NEE. Carbon sequestration decreased with increased burn severity and was largely controlled by decreases in canopy photosynthesis. The MODIS two-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2) monitored the seasonal course of surface greenness and explained 86% of the variability in NEE across the burn severity gradient. We demonstrate that understanding the relationship between burn severity, surface reflectance, and NEE is critical for estimating the overall postfire carbon balance of the Anaktuvuk River fire scar.
  • Preprint
    Species compositional differences on different-aged glacial landscapes drive contrasting responses of tundra to nutrient addition
    ( 2005-01-17) Hobbie, Sarah E. ; Gough, Laura ; Shaver, Gaius R.
    In the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, Alaska, moist non-acidic tundra dominates more recently deglaciated upland landscapes, whereas moist acidic tundra dominates older upland landscapes. In previous studies, experimental fertilization of moist acidic tussock tundra greatly increased the abundance and productivity of the deciduous dwarf shrub Betula nana. However, this species is largely absent from moist non-acidic tundra. These two common upland tundra community types exhibited markedly different responses to fertilization with nitrogen and phosphorus. In moist acidic tundra, cover of deciduous shrubs (primarily B. nana) increased after only 2 years, and by 4 years vascular biomass and above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) had increased significantly, almost entirely because of Betula. In moist non-acidic tundra, both biomass and ANPP were again significantly greater, but no single species dominated the response to fertilization. Instead, the effect was due to a combination of several small, sometimes statistically non-significant responses by forbs, graminoids and prostrate deciduous shrubs. The different growth form and species' responses suggest that fertilization will cause carbon cycling through plant biomass to diverge in these two tundra ecosystems. Already, production of new stems by apical growth has increased relative to leaf production in acidic tundra, whereas the opposite has occurred in non-acidic tundra. Secondary stem growth has also increased as a component of primary production in acidic tundra, but is unchanged in non-acidic tundra. Thus, fertilization will probably increase carbon sequestration in woody biomass of B. nana in acidic tundra, while increasing carbon turnover (but not storage) of non-woody species in non-acidic tundra. These results indicate that nutrient enrichment can have very different consequences for plant communities that occur on different geological substrates, because of differences in composition, even though they share the same regional species pool. Although the specific edaphic factors that maintain compositional differences in this case are unknown, variation in soil pH and related variability in soil nutrient availability may well play a role.
  • Article
    The response of Arctic vegetation and soils following an unusually severe tundra fire
    (The Royal Society, 2013-07-08) Bret-Harte, M. Syndonia ; Mack, Michelle C. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Huebner, Diane C. ; Johnston, Miriam ; Mojica, Camilo A. ; Pizano, Camila ; Reiskind, Julia A.
    Fire causes dramatic short-term changes in vegetation and ecosystem function, and may promote rapid vegetation change by creating recruitment opportunities. Climate warming likely will increase the frequency of wildfire in the Arctic, where it is not common now. In 2007, the unusually severe Anaktuvuk River fire burned 1039 km2 of tundra on Alaska's North Slope. Four years later, we harvested plant biomass and soils across a gradient of burn severity, to assess recovery. In burned areas, above-ground net primary productivity of vascular plants equalled that in unburned areas, though total live biomass was less. Graminoid biomass had recovered to unburned levels, but shrubs had not. Virtually all vascular plant biomass had resprouted from surviving underground parts; no non-native species were seen. However, bryophytes were mostly disturbance-adapted species, and non-vascular biomass had recovered less than vascular plant biomass. Soil nitrogen availability did not differ between burned and unburned sites. Graminoids showed allocation changes consistent with nitrogen stress. These patterns are similar to those seen following other, smaller tundra fires. Soil nitrogen limitation and the persistence of resprouters will likely lead to recovery of mixed shrub–sedge tussock tundra, unless permafrost thaws, as climate warms, more extensively than has yet occurred.
  • Article
    BioTIME : a database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2018-07-24) Dornelas, Maria ; Antao, Laura H. ; Moyes, Faye ; Bates, Amanda E. ; Magurran, Anne E. ; Adam, Dusan ; Akhmetzhanova, Asem A. ; Appeltans, Ward ; Arcos, Jose Manuel ; Arnold, Haley ; Ayyappan, Narayanan ; Badihi, Gal ; Baird, Andrew H. ; Barbosa, Miguel ; Barreto, Tiago Egydio ; Bässler, Claus ; Bellgrove, Alecia ; Belmaker, Jonathan ; Benedetti-Cecchi, Lisandro ; Bett, Brian J. ; Bjorkman, Anne D. ; Błazewicz, Magdalena ; Blowes, Shane A. ; Bloch, Christopher P. ; Bonebrake, Timothy C. ; Boyd, Susan ; Bradford, Matt ; Brooks, Andrew J. ; Brown, James H. ; Bruelheide, Helge ; Budy, Phaedra ; Carvalho, Fernando ; Castaneda-Moya, Edward ; Chen, Chaolun Allen ; Chamblee, John F. ; Chase, Tory J. ; Collier, Laura Siegwart ; Collinge, Sharon K. ; Condit, Richard ; Cooper, Elisabeth J. ; Cornelissen, Johannes H. C. ; Cotano, Unai ; Crow, Shannan Kyle ; Damasceno, Gabriella ; Davies, Claire H. ; Davis, Robert A. ; Day, Frank P. ; Degraer, Steven ; Doherty, Tim S. ; Dunn, Timothy E. ; Durigan, Giselda ; Duffy, J. Emmett ; Edelist, Dor ; Edgar, Graham J. ; Elahi, Robin ; Elmendorf, Sarah C. ; Enemar, Anders ; Ernest, S. K. Morgan ; Escribano, Ruben ; Estiarte, Marc ; Evans, Brian S. ; Fan, Tung-Yung ; Farah, Fabiano Turini ; Fernandes, Luiz Loureiro ; Farneda, Fabio Z. ; Fidelis, Alessandra ; Fitt, Robert ; Fosaa, Anna Maria ; Franco, Geraldo Antonio Daher Correa ; Frank, Grace E. ; Fraser, William R. ; García, Hernando ; Gatti, Roberto Cazzolla ; Givan, Or ; Gorgone-Barbosa, Elizabeth ; Gould, William A. ; Gries, Corinna ; Grossman, Gary D. ; Gutierrez, Julio R. ; Hale, Stephen ; Harmon, Mark E. ; Harte, John ; Haskins, Gary ; Henshaw, Donald L. ; Hermanutz, Luise ; Hidalgo, Pamela ; Higuchi, Pedro ; Hoey, Andrew S. ; Hoey, Gert Van ; Hofgaard, Annika ; Holeck, Kristen ; Hollister, Robert D. ; Holmes, Richard ; Hoogenboom, Mia ; Hsieh, Chih-hao ; Hubbell, Stephen P. ; Huettmann, Falk ; Huffard, Christine L. ; Hurlbert, Allen H. ; Ivanauskas, Natalia Macedo ; Janík, David ; Jandt, Ute ; Jazdzewska, Anna ; Johannessen, Tore ; Johnstone, Jill F. ; Jones, Julia ; Jones, Faith A. M. ; Kang, Jungwon ; Kartawijaya, Tasrif ; Keeley, Erin C. ; Kelt, Douglas A. ; Kinnear, Rebecca ; Klanderud, Kari ; Knutsen, Halvor ; Koenig, Christopher C. ; Kortz, Alessandra R. ; Kral, Kamil ; Kuhnz, Linda A. ; Kuo, Chao-Yang ; Kushner, David J. ; Laguionie-Marchais, Claire ; Lancaster, Lesley T. ; Lee, Cheol Min ; Lefcheck, Jonathan S. ; Levesque, Esther ; Lightfoot, David ; Lloret, Francisco ; Lloyd, John D. ; Lopez-Baucells, Adria ; Louzao, Maite ; Madin, Joshua S. ; Magnusson, Borgbor ; Malamud, Shahar ; Matthews, Iain ; McFarland, Kent P. ; McGill, Brian ; McKnight, Diane ; McLarney, William O. ; Meador, Jason ; Meserve, Peter L. ; Metcalfe, Daniel J. ; Meyer, Christoph F. J. ; Michelsen, Anders ; Milchakova, Nataliya ; Moens, Tom ; Moland, Even ; Moore, Jon ; Moreira, Carolina Mathias ; Muller, Jorg ; Murphy, Grace ; Myers-Smith, Isla H. ; Myster, Randall W. ; Naumov, Andrew ; Neat, Francis ; Nelson, James A. ; Nelson, Michael Paul ; Newton, Stephen F. ; Norden, Natalia ; Oliver, Jeffrey C. ; Olsen, Esben M. ; Onipchenko, Vladimir G. ; Pabis, Krzysztof ; Pabst, Robert J. ; Paquette, Alain ; Pardede, Sinta ; Paterson, David M. ; Pelissier, Raphael ; Penuelas, Josep ; Perez-Matus, Alejandro ; Pizarro, Oscar ; Pomati, Francesco ; Post, Eric ; Prins, Herbert H. T. ; Priscu, John C. ; Provoost, Pieter ; Prudic, Kathleen L. ; Pulliainen, Erkki ; Ramesh, B. B. ; Ramos, Olivia Mendivil ; Rassweiler, Andrew ; Rebelo, Jose Eduardo ; Reed, Daniel C. ; Reich, Peter B. ; Remillard, Suzanne M. ; Richardson, Anthony J. ; Richardson, J. Paul ; Rijn, Itai van ; Rocha, Ricardo ; Rivera-Monroy, Victor H. ; Rixen, Christian ; Robinson, Kevin P. ; Rodrigues, Ricardo Ribeiro ; Rossa-Feres, Denise de Cerqueira ; Rudstam, Lars ; Ruhl, Henry A. ; Ruz, Catalina S. ; Sampaio, Erica M. ; Rybicki, Nancy ; Rypel, Andrew ; Sal, Sofia ; Salgado, Beatriz ; Santos, Flavio A. M. ; Savassi-Coutinho, Ana Paula ; Scanga, Sara ; Schmidt, Jochen ; Schooley, Robert ; Setiawan, Fakhrizal ; Shao, Kwang-Tsao ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Sherman, Sally ; Sherry, Thomas W. ; Sicinski, Jacek ; Sievers, Caya ; da Silva, Ana Carolina ; da Silva, Fernando Rodrigues ; Silveira, Fabio L. ; Slingsby, Jasper ; Smart, Tracey ; Snell, Sara J. ; Soudzilovskaia, Nadejda A. ; Souza, Gabriel B. G. ; Souza, Flaviana Maluf ; Souza, Vinícius Castro ; Stallings, Christopher D. ; Stanforth, Rowan ; Stanley, Emily H. ; Sterza, Jose Mauro ; Stevens, Maarten ; Stuart-Smith, Rick ; Suarez, Yzel Rondon ; Supp, Sarah ; Tamashiro, Jorge Yoshio ; Tarigan, Sukmaraharja ; Thiede, Gary P. ; Thorn, Simon ; Tolvanen, Anne ; Toniato, Maria Teresa Zugliani ; Totland, Orjan ; Twilley, Robert R. ; Vaitkus, Gediminas ; Valdivia, Nelson ; Vallejo, Martha Isabel ; Valone, Thomas J. ; Van Colen, Carl ; Vanaverbeke, Jan ; Venturoli, Fabio ; Verheye, Hans M. ; Vianna, Marcelo ; Vieira, Rui P. ; Vrska, Tomas ; Vu, Con Quang ; Vu, Lien Van ; Waide, Robert B. ; Waldock, Conor ; Watts, David ; Webb, Sara ; Wesołowski, Tomasz ; White, Ethan P. ; Widdicombe, Claire E. ; Wilgers, Wilgers ; Williams, Richard ; Williams, Stefan B. ; Williamson, Mark ; Willig, Michael R. ; Willis, Trevor J. ; Wipf, Sonja ; Woods, Kerry D. ; Woehler, Eric ; Zawada, Kyle ; Zettler, Michael L.
    The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community‐led open‐source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene. The database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record. BioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km2 (158 cm2) to 100 km2 (1,000,000,000,000 cm2). BioTIME records span from 1874 to 2016. The minimal temporal grain across all datasets in BioTIME is a year. BioTIME includes data from 44,440 species across the plant and animal kingdoms, ranging from plants, plankton and terrestrial invertebrates to small and large vertebrates.
  • Preprint
    Long-term release of carbon dioxide from Arctic tundra ecosystems in Alaska
    ( 2016-11) Euskirchen, Eugenie ; Bret-Harte, M. Syndonia ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Edgar, Colin W. ; Romanovsky, Vladimir
    Releases of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from thawing permafrost are expected to be among the largest feedbacks to climate from arctic ecosystems. However, the current net carbon (C) balance of terrestrial arctic ecosystems is unknown. Recent studies suggest that these ecosystems are sources, sinks, or approximately in balance at present. This uncertainty arises because there are few long-term continuous measurements of arctic tundra CO2 fluxes over the full annual cycle. Here, we describe a pattern of CO2 loss based on the longest continuous record of direct measurements of CO2 fluxes in the Alaskan Arctic, from two representative tundra ecosystems, wet sedge and heath tundra. We also report on a shorter time series of continuous measurements from a third ecosystem, tussock tundra. The amount of CO2 loss from both heath and wet sedge ecosystems was related to the timing of freeze-up of the soil active layer in the fall. Wet sedge tundra lost the most CO2 during the anomalously warm autumn periods of September – December 2013 - 2015, with CH4 emissions contributing little to the overall C budget. Losses of C translated to approximately 4.1% and 1.4% of the total soil C stocks in active layer of the wet sedge and heath tundra, respectively, from 2008 – 2015. Increases in air temperature and soil temperatures at all depths may trigger a new trajectory of CO2 release, which will be a significant feedback to further warming if it is representative of larger areas of the Arctic.
  • Preprint
    Depleted 15N in hydrolysable-N of arctic soils and its implication for mycorrhizal fungi–plant interaction
    ( 2009-08) Yano, Yuriko ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Giblin, Anne E. ; Rastetter, Edward B.
    Uptake of nitrogen (N) via root-mycorrhizal associations accounts for a significant portion of total N supply to many vascular plants. Using stable isotope ratios (δ15N) and the mass balance among N pools of plants, fungal tissues, and soils, a number of efforts have been made in recent years to quantify the flux of N from mycorrhizal fungi to host plants. Current estimates of this flux for arctic tundra ecosystems rely on the untested assumption that the δ15N of labile organic N taken up by the fungi is approximately the same as the δ15N of bulk soil. We report here hydrolysable amino acids are more depleted in 15N relative to hydrolysable ammonium and amino sugars in arctic tundra soils near Toolik Lake, Alaska, USA. We demonstrate, using a case study, that recognizing the depletion in 15N for hydrolysable amino acids (δ15N = -5.6 ‰ on average) would alter recent estimates of N flux between mycorrhizal fungi and host plants in an arctic tundra ecosystem.
  • Article
    Effects of long-term climate trends on the methane and CO2 exchange processes of Toolik Lake, Alaska
    (Frontiers Media, 2022-09-13) Eugster, Werner ; DelSontro, Tonya ; Laundre, James A. ; Dobkowski, Jason ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Kling, George W.
    Methane and carbon dioxide effluxes from aquatic systems in the Arctic will affect and likely amplify global change. As permafrost thaws in a warming world, more dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and greenhouse gases are produced and move from soils to surface waters where the DOC can be oxidized to CO2 and also released to the atmosphere. Our main study objective is to measure the release of carbon to the atmosphere via effluxes of methane (CH 4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from Toolik Lake, a deep, dimictic, low-arctic lake in northern Alaska. By combining direct eddy covariance flux measurements with continuous gas pressure measurements in the lake surface waters, we quantified the k600 piston velocity that controls gas flux across the air–water interface. Our measured k values for CH4 and CO2 were substantially above predictions from several models at low to moderate wind speeds, and only converged on model predictions at the highest wind speeds. We attribute this higher flux at low wind speeds to effects on water-side turbulence resulting from how the surrounding tundra vegetation and topography increase atmospheric turbulence considerably in this lake, above the level observed over large ocean surfaces. We combine this process-level understanding of gas exchange with the trends of a climate-relevant long-term (30 + years) meteorological data set at Toolik Lake to examine short-term variations (2015 ice-free season) and interannual variability (2010–2015 ice-free seasons) of CH4 and CO2 fluxes. We argue that the biological processing of DOC substrate that becomes available for decomposition as the tundra soil warms is important for understanding future trends in aquatic gas fluxes, whereas the variability and long-term trends of the physical and meteorological variables primarily affect the timing of when higher or lower than average fluxes are observed. We see no evidence suggesting that a tipping point will be reached soon to change the status of the aquatic system from gas source to sink. We estimate that changes in CH4 and CO2 fluxes will be constrained with a range of +30% and −10% of their current values over the next 30 years.
  • Article
    Processing arctic eddy-flux data using a simple carbon-exchange model embedded in the ensemble Kalman filter
    (Ecological Society of America, 2010-07) Rastetter, Edward B. ; Williams, Mathew ; Griffin, Kevin L. ; Kwiatkowski, Bonnie L. ; Tomasky, Gabrielle ; Potosnak, Mark J. ; Stoy, Paul C. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Stieglitz, Marc ; Hobbie, John E. ; Kling, George W.
    Continuous time-series estimates of net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE) are routinely made using eddy covariance techniques. Identifying and compensating for errors in the NEE time series can be automated using a signal processing filter like the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). The EnKF compares each measurement in the time series to a model prediction and updates the NEE estimate by weighting the measurement and model prediction relative to a specified measurement error estimate and an estimate of the model-prediction error that is continuously updated based on model predictions of earlier measurements in the time series. Because of the covariance among model variables, the EnKF can also update estimates of variables for which there is no direct measurement. The resulting estimates evolve through time, enabling the EnKF to be used to estimate dynamic variables like changes in leaf phenology. The evolving estimates can also serve as a means to test the embedded model and reconcile persistent deviations between observations and model predictions. We embedded a simple arctic NEE model into the EnKF and filtered data from an eddy covariance tower located in tussock tundra on the northern foothills of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska, USA. The model predicts NEE based only on leaf area, irradiance, and temperature and has been well corroborated for all the major vegetation types in the Low Arctic using chamber-based data. This is the first application of the model to eddy covariance data. We modified the EnKF by adding an adaptive noise estimator that provides a feedback between persistent model data deviations and the noise added to the ensemble of Monte Carlo simulations in the EnKF. We also ran the EnKF with both a specified leaf-area trajectory and with the EnKF sequentially recalibrating leaf-area estimates to compensate for persistent model-data deviations. When used together, adaptive noise estimation and sequential recalibration substantially improved filter performance, but it did not improve performance when used individually. The EnKF estimates of leaf area followed the expected springtime canopy phenology. However, there were also diel fluctuations in the leaf-area estimates; these are a clear indication of a model deficiency possibly related to vapor pressure effects on canopy conductance.
  • Article
    Ecosystem responses to climate change at a Low Arctic and a High Arctic long-term research site
    (Springer, 2017-01-23) Hobbie, John E. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Rastetter, Edward B. ; Cherry, Jessica E. ; Goetz, Scott J. ; Guay, Kevin C. ; Gould, William A. ; Kling, George W.
    Long-term measurements of ecological effects of warming are often not statistically significant because of annual variability or signal noise. These are reduced in indicators that filter or reduce the noise around the signal and allow effects of climate warming to emerge. In this way, certain indicators act as medium pass filters integrating the signal over years-to-decades. In the Alaskan Arctic, the 25-year record of warming of air temperature revealed no significant trend, yet environmental and ecological changes prove that warming is affecting the ecosystem. The useful indicators are deep permafrost temperatures, vegetation and shrub biomass, satellite measures of canopy reflectance (NDVI), and chemical measures of soil weathering. In contrast, the 18-year record in the Greenland Arctic revealed an extremely high summer air-warming of 1.3°C/decade; the cover of some plant species increased while the cover of others decreased. Useful indicators of change are NDVI and the active layer thickness.
  • Preprint
    Tight coupling between leaf area index and foliage N content in arctic plant communities
    ( 2004-09-17) van Wijk, Mark T. ; Williams, Mathew ; Shaver, Gaius R.
    The large spatial heterogeneity of arctic landscapes complicates efforts to quantify key processes of these ecosystems, for example productivity, at the landscape level. Robust relationships that help to simplify and explain observed patterns, are thus powerful tools for understanding and predicting vegetation distribution and dynamics. Here we present the same linear relationship between leaf area index and total foliar nitrogen, the two factors determining the photosynthetic capacity of vegetation, across a wide range of tundra vegetation types in both Northern-Sweden and Alaska between leaf area indices of 0 and 1 m2 m-2, which is essentially the entire range of leaf area index values for the Arctic as a whole. Surprisingly, this simple relationship arises as an emergent property at the plant community level, whereas at the species level a large variability in leaf traits exists. As the relationship between LAI and foliar N exists among such varied ecosystems, the arctic environment must impose tight constraints on vegetation canopy development. This relationship simplifies the quantification of vegetation productivity of arctic vegetation types as the two most important drivers of productivity can now be estimated reliably from remotely sensed NDVI images.
  • Preprint
    Incident radiation and the allocation of nitrogen within Arctic plant canopies : implications for predicting gross primary productivity
    ( 2012-01) Street, Lorna E. ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Rastetter, Edward B. ; van Wijk, Mark T. ; Kaye, Brooke A. ; Williams, Mathew
    Arctic vegetation is characterized by high spatial variability in plant functional type (PFT) composition and gross primary productivity (P). Despite this variability, the two main drivers of P in sub-Arctic tundra are leaf area index (LT) and total foliar nitrogen (NT). LT and NT have been shown to be tightly coupled across PFTs in sub-Arctic tundra vegetation, which simplifies up-scaling by allowing quantification of the main drivers of P from remotely sensed LT. Our objective was to test the LT–NT relationship across multiple Arctic latitudes and to assess LT as a predictor of P for the pan-Arctic. Including PFT-specific parameters in models of LT–NT coupling provided only incremental improvements in model fit, but significant improvements were gained from including site-specific parameters. The degree of curvature in the LT–NT relationship, controlled by a fitted canopy nitrogen extinction co-efficient, was negatively related to average levels of diffuse radiation at a site. This is consistent with theoretical predictions of more uniform vertical canopy N distributions under diffuse light conditions. Higher latitude sites had higher average leaf N content by mass (NM), and we show for the first time that LT–NT coupling is achieved across latitudes via canopy-scale trade-offs between NM and leaf mass per unit leaf area (LM). Site-specific parameters provided small but significant improvements in models of P based on LT and moss cover. Our results suggest that differences in LT–NT coupling between sites could be used to improve pan-Arctic models of P and we provide unique evidence that prevailing radiation conditions can significantly affect N allocation over regional scales.
  • Article
    Plant functional types do not predict biomass responses to removal and fertilization in Alaskan tussock tundra
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2008-04-15) Bret-Harte, M. Syndonia ; Mack, Michelle C. ; Goldsmith, Gregory R. ; Sloan, Daniel B. ; DeMarco, Jennie ; Shaver, Gaius R. ; Ray, Peter M. ; Biesinger, Zy ; Chapin, F. Stuart
    Plant communities in natural ecosystems are changing and species are being lost due to anthropogenic impacts including global warming and increasing nitrogen (N) deposition. We removed dominant species, combinations of species and entire functional types from Alaskan tussock tundra, in the presence and absence of fertilization, to examine the effects of non-random species loss on plant interactions and ecosystem functioning. After 6 years, growth of remaining species had compensated for biomass loss due to removal in all treatments except the combined removal of moss, Betula nana and Ledum palustre (MBL), which removed the most biomass. Total vascular plant production returned to control levels in all removal treatments, including MBL. Inorganic soil nutrient availability, as indexed by resins, returned to control levels in all unfertilized removal treatments, except MBL. Although biomass compensation occurred, the species that provided most of the compensating biomass in any given treatment were not from the same functional type (growth form) as the removed species. This provides empirical evidence that functional types based on effect traits are not the same as functional types based on response to perturbation. Calculations based on redistributing N from the removed species to the remaining species suggested that dominant species from other functional types contributed most of the compensatory biomass. Fertilization did not increase total plant community biomass, because increases in graminoid and deciduous shrub biomass were offset by decreases in evergreen shrub, moss and lichen biomass. Fertilization greatly increased inorganic soil nutrient availability. In fertilized removal treatments, deciduous shrubs and graminoids grew more than expected based on their performance in the fertilized intact community, while evergreen shrubs, mosses and lichens all grew less than expected. Deciduous shrubs performed better than graminoids when B. nana was present, but not when it had been removed. Synthesis. Terrestrial ecosystem response to warmer temperatures and greater nutrient availability in the Arctic may result in vegetative stable-states dominated by either deciduous shrubs or graminoids. The current relative abundance of these dominant growth forms may serve as a predictor for future vegetation composition.