Abstract
Background and Aims
Future climate conditions (warmer, wetter) are expected to change aboveground plant communities with linked belowground alterations (e.g. porewater chemistry) that can influence carbon dynamics. The aims of this study were 1) to determine if porewater phenolic compound concentrations reflect the changing aboveground plant community and 2) to elucidate if changes in phenolic compounds alter belowground carbon release.
Methods
We monitored the changes in vegetation biomass, porewater phenolic compound concentrations, respired CO2 and phenol oxidase enzyme activity in 84 intact peatland mesocosms exposed to elevated atmospheric CO2, elevated temperature, and decreased water table conditions in a full factorial design.
Results
Phenolic compound concentrations were indicative of the vascular plant expansion that occurred under warmer and anaerobic conditions, suggesting that phenolic compounds could be a simple indicator of northern plant community dynamics. Ecosystem CO2 respiration increased with rising phenolic compound concentrations, suggesting that phenolic compounds can decrease microbial carbon use efficiency in northern peatlands.
Conclusions
Using an aboveground-belowground framework we present a previously unrecognized mechanism influencing northern carbon dynamics; wherein, climate change conditions can restructure the plant community composition in turn increasing porewater phenolic concentrations, which results in decreased microbial carbon use efficiency and enhanced carbon release.
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Abbreviations
- AB-BG:
-
Above- and belowground
- CO2 :
-
Carbon dioxide
- CH4 :
-
Methane
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Dr. C. Dean, Dean of the Western Faculty of Science for supporting our use of the Biotron, funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant program (ZL, BB), Canada Research Chairs program (BB), NSERC Strategic Network support to the Canada Network for Aquatic Ecosystem Services (BB), Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources' Far North and Science and Research Branches (JM) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program (CD). We thank the numerous volunteers and work study students for their help, especially Aaron Craig, Camille Chemali, Nivetitha Erampamoorthy, Rebecca Doyle, Jeff Warner, Zach Moore, Caterina Carvalhal, Naryan Chattergoon, and Lucas Albano. Discussion with Greg Thorn and Asma Asemaninejad Hassankiadeh were appreciated. Additional thanks to Dr. H. Henry for technical advice on the phenol oxidase assay.
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Dieleman, C.M., Branfireun, B.A., McLaughlin, J.W. et al. Enhanced carbon release under future climate conditions in a peatland mesocosm experiment: the role of phenolic compounds. Plant Soil 400, 81–91 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2713-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2713-0