Paired-tower measurements of carbon and energy fluxes following disturbance in the boreal forest

Disturbances by fire and harvesting are thought to regulate the carbon balance of the Canadian boreal forest over scales of several decades. However, there are few direct measurements of carbon fluxes following disturbances to provide data needed to refine mathematical models. The eddy covariance technique was used with paired towers to measure fluxes simultaneously at disturbed and undisturbed sites over periods of about one week during the growing season in 1998 and 1999. Comparisons were conducted at three sites: a 1‐y‐old burned jackpine stand subjected to an intense crown fire at the International Crown Fire Modelling Experiment site near Fort Providence, North‐west Territories; a 1‐y‐old clearcut aspen area at the EMEND project near Peace River, Alberta; and a 10‐y‐old burned, mixed forest near Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan. Nearby mature forest stands of the same types were also measured as controls. The harvested site had lower net radiation (R_n), sensible (H) and latent (LE) heat fluxes, and greater ground heat fluxes (G) than the mature forest. Daytime CO₂ fluxes were much reduced, but night‐time CO₂ fluxes were identical to that of the mature aspen forest. It is hypothesized that the aspen roots remained alive following harvesting, and dominated soil respiration. The overall effect was that the harvested site was a carbon source of about 1.6 gC m^?2 day^?1, while the mature site was a sink of about ?3.8 gC m^?2 day^?1. The one‐year‐old burn had lower R_n, H and LE than the mature jackpine forest, and had a continuous CO₂ efflux of about 0.8 gC m^–2 day^?1 compared to the mature forest sink of ? 0.5 g C m^?2 day^?1. The carbon source was likely caused by decomposition of fire‐killed vegetation. The 10‐y‐old burned site had similar H, LE, and G to the mature mixed forest site. Although the diurnal amplitude of the CO₂ fluxes were slightly lower at the 10‐y‐old site, there was no significant difference between the daily integrals (? 1.3 gC m^?2 day^?1 at both sites). It appears that most of the change in carbon flux occurs within the first 10 years following disturbance, but more data are needed on other forest and disturbance types for the first 20 years following the disturbance event.     

A Random Field Approach to Transect Counts of Wildlife Populations

Line transect counting of a wildlife population is considered a sampling from a planar marked point process, where the marks describe the detectability of the animals. Sampling properties of transect counts and a new density estimator are derived from a counting process, which is a shot-noise field induced by the marked point process. A general formula for the sampling variance of a transect is derived and applied to compare five common types of transects. Some stereological connections of transect sampling and density estimators are shown.     

CO2 flux dynamics and its limiting factors in the alpine shrub-meadow and steppe-meadow on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau

高寒灌丛草甸和草甸均是青藏高原广泛分布的植被类型, 在生态系统碳通量和区域碳循环中具有极其重要的作用。然而迄今为止, 对其碳通量动态的时空变异还缺乏比较分析, 对碳通量的季节和年际变异的主导影响因子认识还不够清晰, 不利于深入理解生态系统碳通量格局及其形成机制。该研究选取位于青藏高原东部海北站高寒灌丛草甸和高原腹地当雄站高寒草原化草甸年降水量相近的5年(2004-2008年)的涡度相关CO₂通量连续观测数据, 对生态系统净初级生产力(NEP)及其组分, 包括总初级生产力(GPP)和生态系统呼吸的季节、年际动态及其影响因子进行了对比分析。结果表明: 灌丛草甸的CO₂通量无论是季节还是年际累积量均高于草原化草甸, 并且连续5年表现为“碳汇”, 平均每年NEP为70 g C·m ^-2·a ^-1, 高寒草原化草甸平均每年NEP为-5 g C·m ^-2·a ^-1, 几乎处于碳平衡状态, 但其源/汇动态极不稳定, 在2006年-88 g C·m ^-2·a ^-1的“碳源”至2008年54 g C·m ^-2·a ^-1的“碳汇”之间转换, 具有较大的变异性。这两种高寒生态系统源/汇动态的差异主要源于归一化植被指数(NDVI)的差异, 因为NDVI无论在年际水平还是季节水平都是NEP最直接的影响因子; 其次, 灌丛草甸还具有较高的碳利用效率(CUE, CUE = NEP/GPP), 而年降水量和NDVI是决定两生态系统CUE大小的关键因子。两地区除了CO₂通量大小的差异外, 其环境影响因子也有所不同。采用结构方程模型进行的通径分析表明, 灌丛草甸生长季节CO₂通量的主要限制因子是温度, NEP和GPP主要受气温控制, 随着气温升高而增加; 而草原化草甸的CO₂通量多以季节性干旱导致的水分限制为主, 其次才是气温的影响, 受二者的共同限制。此外, 两生态系统生长季节生态系统呼吸主要受GPP和5 cm土壤温度的直接影响, 其中GPP起主导作用, 非生长季节生态系统呼吸主要受5 cm土壤温度影响。该研究还表明, 水热因子的协调度是决定青藏高原高寒草地GPP和NEP的关键要素。     

Solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence is strongly correlated with terrestrial photosynthesis for a wide variety of biomes: First global analysis based on OCO‐2 and flux tower observations

Solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has been increasingly used as a proxy for terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP). Previous work mainly evaluated the relationship between satellite‐observed SIF and gridded GPP products both based on coarse spatial resolutions. Finer resolution SIF (1.3 km × 2.25 km) measured from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory‐2 (OCO‐2) provides the first opportunity to examine the SIF–GPP relationship at the ecosystem scale using flux tower GPP data. However, it remains unclear how strong the relationship is for each biome and whether a robust, universal relationship exists across a variety of biomes. Here we conducted the first global analysis of the relationship between OCO‐2 SIF and tower GPP for a total of 64 flux sites across the globe encompassing eight major biomes. OCO‐2 SIF showed strong correlations with tower GPP at both midday and daily timescales, with the strongest relationship observed for daily SIF at the 757 nm (R² = 0.72, p < 0.0001). Strong linear relationships between SIF and GPP were consistently found for all biomes (R² = 0.57–0.79, p < 0.0001) except evergreen broadleaf forests (R² = 0.16, p < 0.05) at the daily timescale. A higher slope was found for C₄ grasslands and croplands than for C₃ ecosystems. The generally consistent slope of the relationship among biomes suggests a nearly universal rather than biome‐specific SIF–GPP relationship, and this finding is an important distinction and simplification compared to previous results. SIF was mainly driven by absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and was also influenced by environmental stresses (temperature and water stresses) that determine photosynthetic light use efficiency. OCO‐2 SIF generally had a better performance for predicting GPP than satellite‐derived vegetation indices and a light use efficiency model. The universal SIF–GPP relationship can potentially lead to more accurate GPP estimates regionally or globally. Our findings revealed the remarkable ability of finer resolution SIF observations from OCO‐2 and other new or future missions (e.g., TROPOMI, FLEX) for estimating terrestrial photosynthesis across a wide variety of biomes and identified their potential and limitations for ecosystem functioning and carbon cycle studies.     

Plasma N-glycome composition associates with chronic low back pain

Background

Low back pain (LBP) is the symptom of a group of syndromes with heterogeneous underlying mechanisms and molecular pathologies, making treatment selection and patient prognosis very challenging. Moreover, symptoms and prognosis of LBP are influenced by age, gender, occupation, habits, and psychological factors. LBP may be characterized by an underlying inflammatory process. Previous studies indicated a connection between inflammatory response and total plasma N-glycosylation. We wanted to identify potential changes in total plasma N-glycosylation pattern connected with chronic low back pain (CLBP), which could give an insight into the pathogenic mechanisms of the disease.

PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF PHENOTYPIC COVARIANCE STRUCTURE. I. CONTRASTING RESULTS FROM MATRIX CORRELATION AND COMMON PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSES

Applications of quantitative techniques to understanding macroevolutionary patterns typically assume that genetic variances and covariances remain constant. That assumption is tested among 28 populations of the Phyllotis darwini species group (leaf-eared mice). Phenotypic covariances are used as a surrogate for genetic covariances to allow much greater phylogenetic sampling. Two new approaches are applied that extend the comparative method to multivariate data. The efficacy of these techniques are compared, and their sensitivity to sampling error examined. Pairwise matrix correlations of correlation matrices are consistently very high (> 0.90) and show no significant association between matrix similarity and phylogenetic relatedness. Hierarchical decomposition of common principal component (CPC) analyses applied to each clade in the phylogeny rejects the hypothesis that common principal component structure is shared in clades more inclusive than subspecies. Most subspecies also lack a common covariance structure as described by the CPC model. The hypothesis of constant covariances must be rejected, but the magnitudes of divergence in covariance structure appear to be small. Matrix correlations are very sensitive to sampling error, while CPC is not. CPC is a powerful statistical tool that allows detailed testing of underlying patterns of covariation.     

Seasonal patterns and environmental control of carbon dioxide and water vapour exchange in an ecotonal boreal forest

Carbon dioxide, water vapour, and sensible heat fluxes were measured above and within a spruce dominated forest near the southern ecotone of the boreal forest in Maine, USA. Summer, mid-day carbon dioxide uptake was higher than at other boreal coniferous forests, averaging about – 13 μmol CO₂ m^–2 s^–1. Nocturnal summer ecosystem respiration averaged ≈ 6 μmol CO₂ m^–2 s^–1 at a mean temperature of ≈ 15 °C. Significant ecosystem C uptake began with the thawing of the soil in early April and was abruptly reduced by the first autumn frost in early October. Half-hourly forest CO₂ exchange was regulated mostly by the incident photosynthetically active photon flux density (PPFD). In addition to the threshold effects of freezing temperatures, there were seasonal effects on the inferred photosynthetic parameters of the forest canopy. The functional response of this forest to environmental variation was similar to that of other spruce forests. In contrast to reports of carbon loss from northerly boreal forest sites, in 1996 the Howland forest was a strong carbon sink, storing about 2.1 t C ha^–1.