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Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden

Boreal forests occupy nearly one fifth of the terrestrial land surface and are recognised as globally important regulators of carbon (C) cycling and greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon sequestration processes in these forests include assimilation of CO(2) into biomass and subsequently into soil organic...

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Autores principales: McNamara, Niall P., Gregg, Ruth, Oakley, Simon, Stott, Andy, Rahman, Md. Tanvir, Murrell, J. Colin, Wardle, David A., Bardgett, Richard D., Ostle, Nick J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4570772/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26372346
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129892
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author McNamara, Niall P.
Gregg, Ruth
Oakley, Simon
Stott, Andy
Rahman, Md. Tanvir
Murrell, J. Colin
Wardle, David A.
Bardgett, Richard D.
Ostle, Nick J.
author_facet McNamara, Niall P.
Gregg, Ruth
Oakley, Simon
Stott, Andy
Rahman, Md. Tanvir
Murrell, J. Colin
Wardle, David A.
Bardgett, Richard D.
Ostle, Nick J.
author_sort McNamara, Niall P.
collection PubMed
description Boreal forests occupy nearly one fifth of the terrestrial land surface and are recognised as globally important regulators of carbon (C) cycling and greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon sequestration processes in these forests include assimilation of CO(2) into biomass and subsequently into soil organic matter, and soil microbial oxidation of methane (CH(4)). In this study we explored how ecosystem retrogression, which drives vegetation change, regulates the important process of soil CH(4) oxidation in boreal forests. We measured soil CH(4) oxidation processes on a group of 30 forested islands in northern Sweden differing greatly in fire history, and collectively representing a retrogressive chronosequence, spanning 5000 years. Across these islands the build-up of soil organic matter was observed to increase with time since fire disturbance, with a significant correlation between greater humus depth and increased net soil CH(4) oxidation rates. We suggest that this increase in net CH(4) oxidation rates, in the absence of disturbance, results as deeper humus stores accumulate and provide niches for methanotrophs to thrive. By using this gradient we have discovered important regulatory controls on the stability of soil CH(4) oxidation processes that could not have not been explored through shorter-term experiments. Our findings indicate that in the absence of human interventions such as fire suppression, and with increased wildfire frequency, the globally important boreal CH(4) sink could be diminished.
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spelling pubmed-45707722015-09-18 Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden McNamara, Niall P. Gregg, Ruth Oakley, Simon Stott, Andy Rahman, Md. Tanvir Murrell, J. Colin Wardle, David A. Bardgett, Richard D. Ostle, Nick J. PLoS One Research Article Boreal forests occupy nearly one fifth of the terrestrial land surface and are recognised as globally important regulators of carbon (C) cycling and greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon sequestration processes in these forests include assimilation of CO(2) into biomass and subsequently into soil organic matter, and soil microbial oxidation of methane (CH(4)). In this study we explored how ecosystem retrogression, which drives vegetation change, regulates the important process of soil CH(4) oxidation in boreal forests. We measured soil CH(4) oxidation processes on a group of 30 forested islands in northern Sweden differing greatly in fire history, and collectively representing a retrogressive chronosequence, spanning 5000 years. Across these islands the build-up of soil organic matter was observed to increase with time since fire disturbance, with a significant correlation between greater humus depth and increased net soil CH(4) oxidation rates. We suggest that this increase in net CH(4) oxidation rates, in the absence of disturbance, results as deeper humus stores accumulate and provide niches for methanotrophs to thrive. By using this gradient we have discovered important regulatory controls on the stability of soil CH(4) oxidation processes that could not have not been explored through shorter-term experiments. Our findings indicate that in the absence of human interventions such as fire suppression, and with increased wildfire frequency, the globally important boreal CH(4) sink could be diminished. Public Library of Science 2015-09-15 /pmc/articles/PMC4570772/ /pubmed/26372346 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129892 Text en © 2015 McNamara et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
McNamara, Niall P.
Gregg, Ruth
Oakley, Simon
Stott, Andy
Rahman, Md. Tanvir
Murrell, J. Colin
Wardle, David A.
Bardgett, Richard D.
Ostle, Nick J.
Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden
title Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden
title_full Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden
title_fullStr Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden
title_full_unstemmed Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden
title_short Soil Methane Sink Capacity Response to a Long-Term Wildfire Chronosequence in Northern Sweden
title_sort soil methane sink capacity response to a long-term wildfire chronosequence in northern sweden
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4570772/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26372346
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129892
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