scholarly journals Ants as Indicators of Terrestrial Ecosystem Rehabilitation Processes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Sithole ◽  
Nolubabalo Tantsi
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Methods ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Ecological Functions ◽  
Ecosystem Degradation ◽  
Habitat Transformation ◽  
Degraded Ecosystems ◽  
Ecosystem Rehabilitation

Habitat transformation is one of the main drivers of the ecosystem degradation on earth that is ameliorated by restoring some of the degraded ecosystems by regaining their natural ecological functions with all their biotic and abiotic components. The biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem under restoration can be used to assess the response of the ecosystem to the restoration. Ideal variable to use as the indicator should be able respond positively to the diminishing elements that we causing the degradation and interact positively to some of the biotic and abiotic components expected to prevail when the ecosystem is fully restored. One of such variable is ants. We here provide the information about the eligibility of using ants as indicators of terrestrial ecosystems undergoing restoration and sampling and basic analytical methods to apply when implanting ants at assessing ecosystem undergoing restoration.

scholarly journals Potassium Control of Plant Functions: Ecological and Agricultural Implications

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 419
Author(s):  
Jordi Sardans ◽  
Josep Peñuelas
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Wood Formation ◽  
Cellular Growth ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Metabolite Transport ◽  
Physiological Functions

Potassium, mostly as a cation (K+), together with calcium (Ca2+) are the most abundant inorganic chemicals in plant cellular media, but they are rarely discussed. K+ is not a component of molecular or macromolecular plant structures, thus it is more difficult to link it to concrete metabolic pathways than nitrogen or phosphorus. Over the last two decades, many studies have reported on the role of K+ in several physiological functions, including controlling cellular growth and wood formation, xylem–phloem water content and movement, nutrient and metabolite transport, and stress responses. In this paper, we present an overview of contemporary findings associating K+ with various plant functions, emphasizing plant-mediated responses to environmental abiotic and biotic shifts and stresses by controlling transmembrane potentials and water, nutrient, and metabolite transport. These essential roles of K+ account for its high concentrations in the most active plant organs, such as leaves, and are consistent with the increasing number of ecological and agricultural studies that report K+ as a key element in the function and structure of terrestrial ecosystems, crop production, and global food security. We synthesized these roles from an integrated perspective, considering the metabolic and physiological functions of individual plants and their complex roles in terrestrial ecosystem functions and food security within the current context of ongoing global change. Thus, we provide a bridge between studies of K+ at the plant and ecological levels to ultimately claim that K+ should be considered at least at a level similar to N and P in terrestrial ecological studies.

scholarly journals Reduced resilience of terrestrial ecosystems locally is not reflected on a global scale

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhao Feng ◽  
Haojie Su ◽  
Zhiyao Tang ◽  
Shaopeng Wang ◽  
Xia Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Ecosystem Resilience

AbstractGlobal climate change likely alters the structure and function of vegetation and the stability of terrestrial ecosystems. It is therefore important to assess the factors controlling ecosystem resilience from local to global scales. Here we assess terrestrial vegetation resilience over the past 35 years using early warning indicators calculated from normalized difference vegetation index data. On a local scale we find that climate change reduced the resilience of ecosystems in 64.5% of the global terrestrial vegetated area. Temperature had a greater influence on vegetation resilience than precipitation, while climate mean state had a greater influence than climate variability. However, there is no evidence for decreased ecological resilience on larger scales. Instead, climate warming increased spatial asynchrony of vegetation which buffered the global-scale impacts on resilience. We suggest that the response of terrestrial ecosystem resilience to global climate change is scale-dependent and influenced by spatial asynchrony on the global scale.

A coupled multi-proxy and process modelling approach for extraction of quantitative terrestrial ecosystem information from speleothems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Lechleitner ◽  
Christopher C. Day ◽  
Oliver Kost ◽  
Micah Wilhelm ◽  
Negar Haghipour ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Soil Respiration ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Clear Correlation ◽  
Northern Spain ◽  
Regional Temperature ◽  
Global Carbon

<p>Terrestrial ecosystems are intimately linked with the global climate system, but their response to ongoing and future anthropogenic climate change remains poorly understood. Reconstructing the response of terrestrial ecosystem processes over past periods of rapid and substantial climate change can serve as a tool to better constrain the sensitivity in the ecosystem-climate response.</p><p>In this talk, we will present a new reconstruction of soil respiration in the temperate region of Western Europe based on speleothem carbon isotopes (δ<sup>13</sup>C). Soil respiration remains poorly constrained over past climatic transitions, but is critical for understanding the global carbon cycle and its response to ongoing anthropogenic warming. Our study builds upon two decades of speleothem research in Western Europe, which has shown clear correlation between δ<sup>13</sup>C and regional temperature reconstructions during the last glacial and the deglaciation, with exceptional regional coherency in timing, amplitude, and absolute δ<sup>13</sup>C variation. By combining innovative multi-proxy geochemical analysis (δ<sup>13</sup>C, Ca isotopes, and radiocarbon) on three speleothems from Northern Spain, and quantitative forward modelling of processes in soil, karst, and cave, we show how deglacial variability in speleothem δ<sup>13</sup>C is best explained by increasing soil respiration. Our study is the first to quantify and remove the effects of prior calcite precipitation (PCP, using Ca isotopes) and bedrock dissolution (open vs closed system, using the radiocarbon reservoir effect) from the speleothem δ<sup>13</sup>C signal to derive changes in respired δ<sup>13</sup>C over time. Our approach allows us to estimate the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration (Q<sub>10</sub>), which is higher than current measurements, suggesting that part of the speleothem signal may be related to a change in the composition of the soil respired δ<sup>13</sup>C. This is likely related to changing substrate through increasing contribution from vegetation biomass with the onset of the Holocene.</p><p>These results highlight the exciting possibilities speleothems offer as a coupled archive for quantitative proxy-based reconstructions of climate and ecosystem conditions.</p>

scholarly journals A temperature threshold to identify the driving climate forces of the respiratory process in terrestrial ecosystems

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiyuan Zhang ◽  
Renduo Zhang ◽  
Yang Zhou ◽  
Alessandro Cescatti ◽  
Georg Wohlfahrt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Temperature ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Ecosystem Respiration ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
Temperature Threshold ◽  
Current Scenario ◽  
Ecosystem Flux

Abstract. Terrestrial ecosystem respiration (Re) is the major source of CO2 release and constitutes the second largest carbon flux between the biosphere and atmosphere. Therefore, climate-driven changes of Re may greatly impact on future atmospheric CO2 concentration. The aim of this study was to derive an air temperature threshold for identifying the driving climate forces of the respiratory process in terrestrial ecosystems within different temperature zones. For this purpose, a global dataset of 647 site-years of ecosystem flux data collected at 152 sites has been examined. Our analysis revealed an ecosystem threshold of mean annual air temperature (MAT) of 11 ± 2.3 °C. In ecosystems with the MAT below this threshold, the maximum Re rates were primarily dependent on temperature and respiration was mainly a temperature-driven process. On the contrary, in ecosystems with the MAT greater than 11 ± 2.3 °C, in addition to temperature, other driving forces, such as water availability and surface heat flux, became significant drivers of the maximum Re rates and respiration was a multi-factor-driven process. The information derived from this study highlight the key role of temperature as main controlling factor of the maximum Re rates on a large fraction of the terrestrial biosphere, while other driving forces reduce the maximum Re rates and temperature sensitivity of the respiratory process. These findings are particularly relevant under the current scenario of rapid global warming, given that the potential climate-induced changes in ecosystem respiration may lead to substantial anomalies in the seasonality and magnitude of the terrestrial carbon budget.

Discovery of coprolites in an Early Permian fern mesophyll

2022 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
WEI-MING ZHOU ◽  
MING-LI WAN ◽  
JOSEF PŠENIČKA ◽  
JUN WANG
Keyword(s):  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Functional Feeding Groups ◽  
Early Permian ◽  
Plant Organs ◽  
Feeding Groups ◽  
Fossil Records

Plants and arthropods interact with each other and constitute an important part of the modern terrestrial ecosystem (Schoonhoven et al., 2005). Historically, fossil records of plant-arthropod interactions have been well documented in Paleozoic terrestrial ecosystems, which were evidenced by large coprolites containing various plant fragments (e.g., Salter et al., 2012), small larvae and coprolites remained in plant organs (e.g., Feng et al., 2017), and diverse functional feeding groups discovered on plant stems, rachises, roots, leaves and fertile organs (e.g., Liu et al., 2020).

Climate Change and Its Impact on Terrestrial Ecosystems

2021 ◽  
pp. 140-157
Author(s):  
Banwari Dandotiya ◽  
Harendra K. Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Precipitation Pattern ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Weather Events ◽  
Increasing Temperature ◽  
Climatic Disturbances

This chapter provides a general overview of the effects of climate change on the terrestrial ecosystem and is meant to set the stage for the specific papers. The discussion in this chapter focuses basically on the effects of climatic disturbances on terrestrial flora and fauna, including increasing global temperature and changing climatic patterns of terrestrial areas of the globe. Basically, climate disturbances derived increasing temperature and greenhouse gases have the ability to induce this phenomenon. Greenhouse gases are emitted by a number of sources in the atmosphere such as urbanization, industrialization, transportation, and population growth, so these contributing factors and its effects on climatic events like temperature rise, change precipitation pattern, extreme weather events, survival and shifting of biodiversity, seasonal disturbances, and effects on glaciers are relatively described in this chapter.

scholarly journals A new terrestrial biosphere model with coupled carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles (QUINCY v1.0; revision 1772)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tea Thum ◽  
Silvia Caldararu ◽  
Jan Engel ◽  
Melanie Kern ◽  
Marleen Pallandt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Monitoring Networks ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Element Cycling ◽  
Terrestrial Biosphere ◽  
Ecosystem Monitoring ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem Model

Abstract. The dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems are shaped by the coupled cycles of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, and strongly depend on the availability of water and energy. These interactions shape future terrestrial biosphere responses to global change. Many process-based models of the terrestrial biosphere have been gradually extended from considering carbon-water interactions to also including nitrogen, and later, phosphorus dynamics. This evolutionary model development has hindered full integration of these biogeochemical cycles and the feedbacks amongst them. Here we present a new terrestrial ecosystem model QUINCY (QUantifying Interactions between terrestrial Nutrient CYcles and the climate system), which is formulated around a consistent representation of element cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. This new model includes i) a representation of plant growth which separates source (e.g. photosynthesis) and sink (growth rate of individual tissues, constrained by nutrients, temperature, and water availability) processes; ii) the acclimation of many ecophysiological processes to meteorological conditions and/or nutrient availabilities; iii) an explicit representation of vertical soil processes to separate litter and soil organic matter dynamics; iv) a range of new diagnostics (leaf chlorophyll content; 13C, 14C, and 15N isotope tracers) to allow for a more in-depth model evaluation. We present the model structure and provide an assessment of its performance against a range of observations from global-scale ecosystem monitoring networks. We demonstrate that the framework is capable of consistently simulating ecosystem dynamics across a large gradient in climate and soil conditions, as well as across different plant functional types. To aid this understanding we provide an assessment of the model's sensitivity to its parameterisation and the associated uncertainty.

scholarly journals Terrestrial Ecosystem Impacts of Sulfide Mining: Scope of Issues for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota, USA

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee E. Frelich
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Mine Drainage ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Migration Routes ◽  
Metal Mining ◽  
Mining Operations ◽  
Ecosystem Impacts ◽  
Mining Impacts

Large-scale metal mining operations are planned or underway in many locations across the boreal forest biome in North America, Europe, and Asia. Although many published analyses of mining impacts on water quality in boreal landscapes are available, there is little guidance regarding terrestrial impacts. Scoping of potential impacts of Cu-Ni exploration and mining in sulfide ores are presented for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), Minnesota USA, an area of mostly boreal forest on thin soils and granitic bedrock. Although the primary footprint of the proposed mines would be outside the BWCAW, displacement and fragmentation of forest ecosystems would cause spatial propagation of effects into a secondary footprint within the wilderness. Potential negative impacts include disruption of population dynamics for wildlife species with migration routes, or metapopulations of plant species that span the wilderness boundary, and establishment of invasive species outside the wilderness that could invade the wilderness. Due to linkages between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, acid mine drainage can impact lowland forests, which are highly dependent on chemistry of water flowing through them. The expected extremes in precipitation and temperature due to warming climate can also interact with mining impacts to reduce the resilience of forests to disturbance caused by mining.

scholarly journals Reviews and syntheses: Changing ecosystem influences on soil thermal regimes in northern high-latitude permafrost regions

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (17) ◽  
pp. 5287-5313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael M. Loranty ◽  
Benjamin W. Abbott ◽  
Daan Blok ◽  
Thomas A. Douglas ◽  
Howard E. Epstein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Energy ◽  
High Latitude ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Energy Partitioning ◽  
Climate Feedback ◽  
Permafrost Soil ◽  
Thermal Dynamics ◽  
Northern High Latitude

Abstract. Soils in Arctic and boreal ecosystems store twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, a portion of which may be released as high-latitude soils warm. Some of the uncertainty in the timing and magnitude of the permafrost–climate feedback stems from complex interactions between ecosystem properties and soil thermal dynamics. Terrestrial ecosystems fundamentally regulate the response of permafrost to climate change by influencing surface energy partitioning and the thermal properties of soil itself. Here we review how Arctic and boreal ecosystem processes influence thermal dynamics in permafrost soil and how these linkages may evolve in response to climate change. While many of the ecosystem characteristics and processes affecting soil thermal dynamics have been examined individually (e.g., vegetation, soil moisture, and soil structure), interactions among these processes are less understood. Changes in ecosystem type and vegetation characteristics will alter spatial patterns of interactions between climate and permafrost. In addition to shrub expansion, other vegetation responses to changes in climate and rapidly changing disturbance regimes will affect ecosystem surface energy partitioning in ways that are important for permafrost. Lastly, changes in vegetation and ecosystem distribution will lead to regional and global biophysical and biogeochemical climate feedbacks that may compound or offset local impacts on permafrost soils. Consequently, accurate prediction of the permafrost carbon climate feedback will require detailed understanding of changes in terrestrial ecosystem distribution and function, which depend on the net effects of multiple feedback processes operating across scales in space and time.

Quantitatively assessing the effects of climate change and human activities on ecosystem degradation and restoration in southwest China

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 335
Author(s):  
Z. G. Sun ◽  
J. S. Wu ◽  
F. Liu ◽  
T. Y. Shao ◽  
X. B. Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Primary Productivity ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Southwest China ◽  
Net Primary Productivity ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Ecosystem Degradation ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Degraded Ecosystem ◽  
Annual Means

Identifying the effects of climate change and human activities on the degradation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems is essential for sustainable management of these ecosystems. However, our knowledge of methodology on this topic is limited. To assess the relative contribution of climate change and human activities, actual and potential net primary productivity (NPPa and NPPp respectively), and human appropriation of net primary productivity (HANPP) were calculated and applied to the monitoring of forest, grassland, and cropland ecosystems in Yunnan–Guizhou–Sichuan Provinces, southwest China. We determined annual means of 476 g C m–2 year–1 for NPPa, 1314 g C m–2 year–1 for NPPp, and 849 g C m–2 year–1 for HANPP during the period between 2007 and 2016. Furthermore, the area with an increasing NPPa accounted for 75.12% of the total area of the three ecosystems. Similarly, the areas with increasing NPPp and HANPP accounted for 77.60 and 57.58% of the study area respectively. Furthermore, we found that ~57.58% of areas with ecosystem restored was due to climate change, 23.39% due to human activities, and 19.03% due to the combined effects of human activities and climate change. In contrast, climate change and human activities contributed to 19.47 and 76.36%, respectively, of the areas of degraded ecosystem. Only 4.17% of degraded ecosystem could be attributed to the combined influences of climate change and human activities. We conclude that human activities were mainly responsible for ecosystem degradation, whereas climate change benefitted ecosystem restoration in southwest China in the past decade.

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