Adaptation of rhizobium to subarctic environment in Scandinavia

Summary Strains of clover rhizobia were isolated from northern Scandinavia (68–70° N.lat.) and, for comparison, also from some places in southern Scandinavia (S. of 63° N.lat.). Pure cultures were used for studies of 1) bacterial growth in liquid culture, 2) nodulation of host plants, and 3) nitrogenase activity, as measured by the acetylene reduction technique, of the host-bacterium association. The tests were performed both at 10°C and 20°C. In all these respects, the isolates from the subarctic region showed on an average better adaptation to low temperature than the isolates from more southern areas. At 10°C, the former grew faster, nodulated their host plants somewhat earlier and showed a more vigorous acetylene reduction than the latter. At 20°C no significant differences were observed between isolates of different geographical origin. An adaptation of Rhizobium to a cold climate and a short growing season might be useful for practical purposes, because soil temperatures are usually low at sowing-time in large areas of the temperate zones.     

Biogenic volatile organic compound emissions in four vegetation types in high arctic Greenland

Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) emitted from terrestrial vegetation participate in oxidative reactions in the atmosphere, leading to the formation of secondary organic aerosols and longer lifetime of methane. Global models of BVOC emissions have assumed minimal emissions from the high latitudes. However, measurements from this region are lacking, and studies from the high arctic are yet to be published. This study aimed to obtain estimates for BVOC emissions from the high arctic, and hereby to add new knowledge to the understanding of global BVOC emissions. Measurements were conducted in four vegetation types dominated by Cassiope tetragona, Salix arctica, Vaccinium uliginosum and a mixture of Kobresia myosuroides, Dryas spp. and Poa arctica. Emissions were measured by an enclosure technique and collection of volatiles into adsorbent cartridges in August. Volatiles were analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry following thermal desorption. Isoprene showed highest emissions in S. arctica heath. Monoterpene and sesquiterpene emissions were especially associated with C. tetragona heath. Total observed emissions were comparable in magnitude to emissions previously found in the subarctic, whereas isoprene emissions were lower. This study shows that considerable amounts of BVOCs are emitted from the high arctic. The results are also of importance as the emissions from this region are expected to increase in the future as a result of the predicted climate warming in the high arctic. We suggest further studies to assess the effects of climate changes in the region in order to gain new knowledge and understanding of future global BVOC emissions.     

Utilization of lichens in the arctic and subarctic

Economic Botany - The principal economic importance of lichens lies in their providing sustenance for hundreds of thousands of reindeer in circumpolar regions, animals upon which the Eskimos, Lapps...     

Carbon emissions from fires in tropical and subtropical ecosystems

Global carbon emissions from fires are difficult to quantify and have the potential to influence interannual variability and long‐term trends in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. We used 4 years of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) satellite data and a biogeochemical model to assess spatial and temporal variability of carbon emissions from tropical fires. The TRMM satellite data extended between 38°N and 38°S and covered the period from 1998 to 2001. A relationship between TRMM fire counts and burned area was derived using estimates of burned area from other satellite fire products in Africa and Australia and reported burned areas from the United States. We modified the Carnegie‐Ames‐Stanford‐Approach (CASA) biogeochemical model to account for both direct combustion losses and the decomposition from fire‐induced mortality, using both TRMM and Sea‐viewing Wide Field of view Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite data as model drivers. Over the 1998–2001 period, we estimated that the sum of carbon emissions from tropical fires and fuel wood use was 2.6 Pg C yr^?1. An additional flux of 1.2 Pg C yr^?1 was released indirectly, as a result of decomposition of vegetation killed by fire but not combusted. The sum of direct and indirect carbon losses from fires represented 9% of tropical and subtropical net primary production (NPP). We found that including fire processes in the tropics substantially alters the seasonal cycle of net biome production by shifting carbon losses to months with low soil moisture and low rates of soil microbial respiration. Consequently, accounting for fires increases growing season net flux by ～12% between 38°N and 38°S, with the greatest effect occurring in highly productive savanna regions.     

Food web changes in arctic ecosystems related to climate warming

Sedimentary records from three Canadian High Arctic ponds on Ellesmere Island, spanning the last several thousand years, show major shifts in pond communities within the last ～200 years. These paleolimnological data indicate that aquatic insect (Diptera: Chironomidae) populations rapidly expanded and greatly increased in community diversity beginning in the 19th century. These invertebrate changes coincided with striking shifts in algal (diatom) populations, indicating strong food‐web effects because of climate warming and reduced ice‐cover in ponds. Predicted future warming in the Arctic may produce ecological changes that exceed the large shifts that have already occurred since the 19th century.     

Methyl bromide emissions to the atmosphere from temperate woodland ecosystems

The environmental importance of methyl bromide (CH₃Br) arises from its contribution to stratospheric ozone loss processes and, as a consequence, its emissions from anthropogenic sources are subject to the Montreal Protocol. A better understanding of the natural budget of CH₃Br is required for assessing the benefit of anthropogenic emission reductions and for understanding any potential effects of environmental change on global CH₃Br concentrations. Measurements of CH₃Br flux in temperate woodland ecosystems, in particular, are very sparse, yet these cover a large fraction of terrestrial land surface. Results presented here from 18 months of field measurements of CH₃Br fluxes in four static flux chambers in a woodland in Scotland and from enclosures of rotting wood and deciduous and coniferous leaf litter suggest net emissions from temperate woodlands. Net CH₃Br fluxes in the woodland varied between the chambers, fluctuating between net uptake and net emissions (?73 to 279 ng m^?2 h^?1 across 161 individual measurements), and with no strong seasonality, but with time‐averaged net emission overall [27±57 (1 SD)] ng m^?2 h^?1]. This work demonstrates that scale‐up needs to be based on sufficient individual measurements to provide a reasonably constrained estimate of the long‐term mean. Mean (±1 SD) net CH₃Br emissions from deciduous and coniferous leaf litter were 43 (±33) ng kg^?1 (dry weight) h^?1 and 80 (±37) ng kg^?1 (dry weight) h^?1, respectively, and ～1–2 ng kg^?1 (fresh weight) h^?1 from rotting woody litter. Despite the intrinsic variability, data obtained here consistently point to the conclusion that the temperate forest soil/litter ecosystem is a net source of CH₃Br to the atmosphere.     

Variability of macroinvertebrate community composition in an arctic and subarctic stream

The macroinvertebrate community composition was compared in two Alaskan streams (USA) for numeric and species constancy during the ice-free period from 1981 to 1983. Imnavait Creek is a first order arctic stream (60° 39 N, 149° 21 W) draining upland tundra in the foothills of the Brooks Range. Caribou-Poker Creek is a 4th order subarctic stream (65° 08 N, 147° 28 W) draining the taiga forest north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The aquatic insect larvae and other macroinvertebrates were sampled with drift nets and Hess bottom samplers for four periods, each 1 week long in the ice free season of three years. We found 112 species in the arctic stream and 138 species in the subarctic stream in a chironomid-dominated community. In any sample period the communities contained 51–60 species in the arctic and 49–92 species in the subarctic. Between the four sample periods on average 39% and 50% of the species were present in two sequential samples in the arctic and subarctic stream, respectively. New immigrants, never before found in the system, averaged 37% and 31% of the community, respectively. These systems are exposed to several intermediate disturbances: prolonged and variable freeze-up, extreme variation in discharge, wide diel and seasonal changes in temperature, and erosion by frazil and anchor ice. The dipterans that compose the most numerous and variable taxa must have variable diapause, ability to grow in cold waters, and good dispersal powers, even migrating across drainages in the arctic. Much of the seasonal dominance pattern appears therefore to be stochastic.     

Mineralization and distribution of nutrients in plants and microbes in four arctic ecosystems: responses to warming

Mineralization and nutrient distribution in plants and microbes were studied in four arctic ecosystems at Abisko, Northern Sweden and Toolik Lake, Alaska, which have been subjected to long-term warming with plastic greenhouses. Net mineralization and microbial immobilization were studied by the buried bag method and ecosystem pool sizes of C, N and P were determined by harvest methods. The highest amounts of organic N and P were bound in the soil organic matter. Microbial N and P constituted the largest labile pools often equal to (N) or exceeding (P) the amounts stored in the vegetation. Despite large pools of N and P in the soil, net mineralization of N and P was generally low during the growing season, except in the wet sedge tundra, and in most cases lower than the plant uptake requirement. In contrast, the microorganisms immobilized high amounts of nutrients in the buried bags during incubation. The same high immobilization was not observed in the surrounding soil, where the microbial nutrient content in most cases remained constant or decreased over the growing season. This suggests that the low mineralization measured in many arctic ecosystems over the growing season is due to increased immobilization by soil microbes when competition from plant roots is prevented. Furthermore, it suggests that plants compete well with microbes for nutrients in these four ecosystems. Warming increased net mineralization in several cases, which led to increased assimilation of nutrients by plants but not by the microbes.     

Contribution to the rotifer fauna of subarctic Greenland (Kangerlussuaq and Ammassalik area)

Six water bodies in the region of Kangerlussuaq, West Greenland (67° 30 N, 50° 46 W), and four near Ammassalik, East Greenland (65° 36 N, 37° 38 W) were sampled. Sixty-nine taxa (2 Bdelloidea, 67 Monogononta) are reported, forty-six of which represent new records for Greenland. Proales pejleri n. sp. is described.     

Enzymatic release of phosphate in water from subarctic lakes in Northern Sweden

Enzymatic phosphate release was studied in water from three small lakes in the subarctic region of northern Sweden. Free dissolved hydrolytic enzymes were shown to release considerable amounts of phosphate from autoclaved lake water. It was possible to show that phosphate was enzymatically released from particulate matter by exposure of autoclaved, ³²P-labelled plankton to lake enzymes followed by characterization of degradation products with gel chromatography. Seston turned out to be vitally important as a phosphorus source for planktic organisms since plankton inoculated in lake water freed from seston were shown to produce high activities of phosphatase.     

Fish determine macroinvertebrate food webs and assemblage structure in Greenland subarctic streams

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Detection of farm fox and hybrid genotypes among wild arctic foxes in Scandinavia

In Scandinavia, farmed arctic foxes frequently escape from farms, raising concern about hybridization with the endangered wild population. This study was performed to find a genetic marker to distinguish escaped farm foxes from wild Scandinavian foxes. Microsatellite and mitochondrial control region variation were analyzed in 41 farm foxes. The results were compared with mitochondrial and microsatellite data from the wild population in Scandinavia. The farm foxes were genetically distinct from the wild foxes (F _ST=0.254, P < 0.00001) and all farm foxes had a single control region haplotype different from those observed in the wild population. We developed a method based on Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) on the mitochondrial control region to differentiate between farmed and wild arctic foxes. This test was subsequently successfully used on 25 samples from free-ranging foxes, of which four had a suspected farm origin. All four of the suspected foxes, and none of the others, carried the farm fox haplotype. Three of these were successfully genotyped for all eleven microsatellite loci. A population assignment test and a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis indicated that two of these individuals were escaped farm foxes, and that the third possibly was a hybrid between a farmed and a wild arctic fox.     

Floral scent variation in the Pyrola rotundifolia complex in Scandinavia and Western Greenland

The variation in floral scent composition within and among populations of four taxa belonging to the Pyrola rotundifolia complex was analyzed using Principal Component Analysis. Two major groups were recognized, P. norvegica and P. grandiflora on the one side and P. rotundifolia s. str. on the other. Benzaldehyde dominated the scent of the first group and methoxy benzenes and phenyl propanoids that of the second group. A large variation in the floral scent chemistry was found both within some of the studied populations as well as among them. The floral scent composition of P. rotundifolia ssp. maritima was no more different from P. rotundifolia ssp. rotundifolia , than the differences between populations of P. rotundifolia ssp. rotundifolia . The findings are in partial agreement with the current delimitation of the taxa in the P. rotundifolia complex.     

Phytoplankton production in subarctic lake and river ecosystems: development of a photosynthesis-temperature-irradiance model

We investigated the size-dependent temperature response of naturalphytoplankton communities from a lake and a river in the Canadiansubarctic. Photosynthesis by total, <2 m and >2 µmsize fractions was determined at 11 irradiances (1–109%of ambient solar radiation) and five temperatures (5–25C)in outdoor solar incubators. Temperature had no effect on photosynthesisat low irradiance, but strongly regulated the photosyntheticresponse at saturating and inhibiting irradiances. For the riverphytoplankton, low temperatures lowered EK values (onset oflight saturation) and shifted photosynthesis in the water columnfrom light dependence to temperature depend ence. A photosynthesis-temperature-irradiance(P-T-E) model was developed to describe the varied temperatureresponse of photosynthesis across the full range of limiting,saturating and inhibiting irra diances. The P-T-E model explained74–95% of the variation in photosynthesis for all sizefractions (total community, >2 µ fraction and <2µm fraction). Picoplankton (<2 µm) had greaterphotosyn thetic rates (P_max) at all temperatures than did thetotaland >2 µm communities. The picoplankton fraction wasalso more responsive to increasing temperature than larger cells,implying a greater sensitivity to diurnal or longer term changesin lake water temperature.     

Observations on microbial percent respiration values in arctic and subarctic marine waters and sediments

Percent respiration was measured in over 1,100 arctic and subarctic marine water and sediment samples using¹⁴C-labeled glucose and glutamate. These measurements were made at different times of the year in 4 regions. Percent respiration values were typically lower in regions where the waters of large rivers mixed with seawater. They were also lower in sediments and in waters collected near the bottom than in surface waters. They were higher in winter arctic waters than water samples collected in the summer; however, a similar seasonal trend was not observed in subarctic waters. There were a number of studies in which there were significant positive rank correlations between percent respiration and salinity and between percent respiration and temperature. From what is known about the range of temperature and salinity encountered in samples collected during these studies and the results of temperature and salinity effects experiments, it was concluded that changes in these 2 variables did not explain the variation observed in percent respiration. Correlations between percent respiration and the inorganic nutrients PO₄ ^–3, NH₄ ⁺ and NO₃ ^– showed that of the 3 variables, only NO₃ ^– showed relatively high correlations with all the same sign. From this it was concluded that there may be situations in which NO₃ ^– levels may influence percent respiration in nearshore marine waters. It is also likely that qualitative characteristics of the available organic nutrients may also influence percent respiration levels. Although no organic nutrient data is available for statistical analysis, the patterns of percent respiration near river plumes and the relatively strong negative correlation often observed between uptake rates (heterotrophic activity) and percent respiration suggests that organic nutrients may be a factor in controlling percent respiration. It is suggested that there are situations in which percent respiration measurements may be used to document stress in natural microbial populations due to nutrient deficiencies.     

Diverse Mesorhizobium bacteria nodulate native Astragalus and Oxytropis in arctic and subarctic areas in Eurasia

Rhizobia nodulating native Astragalus and Oxytropis spp. in Northern Europe are not well-studied. In this study, we isolated bacteria from nodules of four Astragalus spp. and two Oxytropis spp. from the arctic and subarctic regions of Sweden and Russia. The phylogenetic analyses were performed by using sequences of three housekeeping genes (16S rRNA, rpoB and recA) and two accessory genes (nodC and nifH). The results of our multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) of the three housekeeping genes tree showed that all the 13 isolates belonged to the genus Mesorhizobium and were positioned in six clades. Our concatenated housekeeping gene tree also suggested that the isolates nodulating Astragalus inopinatus, Astragalus frigidus, Astragalus alpinus ssp. alpinus and Oxytropis revoluta might be designated as four new Mesorhizobium species. The 13 isolates were grouped in three clades in the nodC and nifH trees. ¹⁵N analysis suggested that the legumes in association with these isolates were actively fixing nitrogen.     

Functional and numerical responses of four lemming predators in high arctic Greenland

The high‐arctic tundra ecosystem has the world's simplest vertebrate predator–prey community, with only four predators preying upon one rodent species, the collared lemming (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus). We document the functional and numerical responses of all the four predators in NE Greenland. Using these data, we assess the impact of predation on the dynamics of the collared lemming with a 4 yr cycle and >100‐fold difference between maximum and minimum densities. All predator species feed mostly (>90%) on lemmings when lemming density is >1 ha^?1, but the shapes of the predators’ responses vary greatly. The snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca) is present and breeds only when lemming densities at snowmelt are >2 ha^?1, giving rise to a step‐like numerical response. The long‐tailed skua (Stercorarius longicaudus) has a type III functional response and shifts from alternate food (mainly berries and insects) to lemmings with increasing lemming density. The skua surpasses all the other predators in summer by its total response. The type III functional response of the Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus) starts to increase at much lower lemming densities than the responses of the avian predators, but it has only a weak numerical response. Finally, the stoat (Mustela erminea) is the most specialized predator and the only one with a clearly delayed numerical response. According to their specific functional and numerical responses, each predator plays a key role at some point of the lemming cycle, but only the stoat has the potential to drive the lemming cycle. Stoat predation is greatly reduced in the winter preceding the lemming peak, and it reaches a maximum in the winter preceding the lowest lemming summer density. Stoat predation appears to maintain low lemming densities for at least two successive years. Our study provides empirical support for the specialist predator hypothesis about small mammal population cycles.     

Predicted responses of arctic and alpine ecosystems to altered seasonality under climate change

Global climate change is already having significant impacts on arctic and alpine ecosystems, and ongoing increases in temperature and altered precipitation patterns will affect the strong seasonal patterns that characterize these temperature‐limited systems. The length of the potential growing season in these tundra environments is increasing due to warmer temperatures and earlier spring snow melt. Here, we compare current and projected climate and ecological data from 20 Northern Hemisphere sites to identify how seasonal changes in the physical environment due to climate change will alter the seasonality of arctic and alpine ecosystems. We find that although arctic and alpine ecosystems appear similar under historical climate conditions, climate change will lead to divergent responses, particularly in the spring and fall shoulder seasons. As seasonality changes in the Arctic, plants will advance the timing of spring phenological events, which could increase plant nutrient uptake, production, and ecosystem carbon (C) gain. In alpine regions, photoperiod will constrain spring plant phenology, limiting the extent to which the growing season can lengthen, especially if decreased water availability from earlier snow melt and warmer summer temperatures lead to earlier senescence. The result could be a shorter growing season with decreased production and increased nutrient loss. These contrasting alpine and arctic ecosystem responses will have cascading effects on ecosystems, affecting community structure, biotic interactions, and biogeochemistry.