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High emissions of greenhouse gases from grasslands on peat and other organic soils Open
Drainage has turned peatlands from a carbon sink into one of the world's largest greenhouse gas ( GHG ) sources from cultivated soils. We analyzed a unique data set (12 peatlands, 48 sites and 122 annual budgets) of mainly unpublished GHG …
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Highly anomalous accumulation rates of C and N recorded by a relic, free-floating peatland in Central Italy Open
Floating islands mysteriously moving around on lakes were described by several Latin authors almost two millennia ago. These fascinating ecosystems, known as free-floating mires, have been extensively investigated from ecological, hydrolog…
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Regional-Scale In-Depth Analysis of Soil Fungal Diversity Reveals Strong pH and Plant Species Effects in Northern Europe Open
Soil microbiome has a pivotal role in ecosystem functioning, yet little is known about its build-up from local to regional scales. In a multi-year regional-scale survey involving 1251 plots and long-read third-generation sequencing, we fou…
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Methanotrophy across a natural permafrost thaw environment Open
The fate of carbon sequestered in permafrost is a key concern for future global warming as this large carbon stock is rapidly becoming a net methane source due to widespread thaw. Methane release from permafrost is moderated by methanotrop…
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Biogeochemical indicators of peatland degradation – a case study of a temperate bog in northern Germany Open
Organic soils in peatlands store a great proportion of the global soil carbon pool and can lose carbon via the atmosphere due to degradation. In Germany, most of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from organic soils are attributed to sites…
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Global peatland initiation driven by regionally asynchronous warming Open
Significance Peatlands are organic-rich wetlands that have acted as globally important carbon sinks since the Last Glacial Maximum. However, the drivers of peat initiation are poorly understood. Using a catalog of radiocarbon dates combine…
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Rapid loss of an ecosystem engineer: <i>Sphagnum</i> decline in an experimentally warmed bog Open
Sphagnum mosses are keystone components of peatland ecosystems. They facilitate the accumulation of carbon in peat deposits, but climate change is predicted to expose peatland ecosystem to sustained and unprecedented warming leading to a s…
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Heterotrophic soil respiration in forestry-drained peatlands Open
Heterotrophic soil respiration (CO 2 efflux from the decomposition of peat and root litter) in three forestry-drained peatlands with different site types and with a large climatic gradient from the hemi-boreal (central Estonia) to south (…
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Photosynthesis, growth, and decay traits in <i>Sphagnum</i> – a multispecies comparison Open
Peat mosses ( Sphagnum ) largely govern carbon sequestration in Northern Hemisphere peatlands. We investigated functional traits related to growth and decomposition in Sphagnum species. We tested the importance of environment and phylogeny…
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IUCN UK Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands. Open
Peatlands are areas of land with a naturally accumulated layer of peat. These are formed under waterlogged conditions from carbon rich, dead and decaying plant material. In the UK mosses, mainly Sphagnum species, are the main formers of pe…
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Effects of permafrost thaw on nitrogen availability and plant–soil interactions in a boreal Alaskan lowland Open
Summary Increasing rates of permafrost thaw in boreal peatlands are converting conifer forests to waterlogged open wetlands. Permafrost thaw increases soil nitrogen (N) availability, but it is unclear whether such changes are due solely to…
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Assessing the carbon and climate benefit of restoring degraded agricultural peat soils to managed wetlands Open
Restoring degraded peat soils presents an attractive, but largely untested, climate change mitigation approach. Drained peat soils used for agriculture can be large greenhouse gas sources. By restoring subsided peat soils to managed, impou…
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The Boreal–Arctic Wetland and Lake Dataset (BAWLD) Open
Methane emissions from boreal and arctic wetlands, lakes, and rivers are expected to increase in response to warming and associated permafrost thaw. However, the lack of appropriate land cover datasets for scaling field-measured methane em…
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Rapid Net Carbon Loss From a Whole‐Ecosystem Warmed Peatland Open
To evaluate boreal peatland C losses from warming, novel technologies were used to expose intact bog plots in northern Minnesota to a range of future temperatures (+0°C to +9°C) with and without elevated CO 2 (eCO 2 ). After 3 years, warmi…
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Drone Image Segmentation Using Machine and Deep Learning for Mapping Raised Bog Vegetation Communities Open
The application of drones has recently revolutionised the mapping of wetlands due to their high spatial resolution and the flexibility in capturing images. In this study, the drone imagery was used to map key vegetation communities in an I…
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Holocene Atmospheric Mercury Levels Reconstructed from Peat Bog Mercury Stable Isotopes Open
Environmental regulations on mercury (Hg) emissions and associated ecosystem restoration are closely linked to what Hg levels we consider natural. It is widely accepted that atmospheric Hg deposition has increased by a factor 3 ± 1 since p…
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Microbial network, phylogenetic diversity and community membership in the active layer across a permafrost thaw gradient Open
Summary Biogenic production and release of methane (CH 4 ) from thawing permafrost has the potential to be a strong source of radiative forcing. We investigated changes in the active layer microbial community of three sites representative …
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Storage, Landscape Distribution, and Burial History of Soil Organic Matter in Contrasting Areas of Continuous Permafrost Open
This study describes and compares soil organic matter (SOM) quantity and characteristics in two areas of continuous permafrost, a mountainous region in NE Greenland (Zackenberg study site) and a lowland region in NE Siberia (Cherskiy and S…
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Taxonomic and functional turnover are decoupled in European peat bogs Open
In peatland ecosystems, plant communities mediate a globally significant carbon store. The effects of global environmental change on plant assemblages are expected to be a factor in determining how ecosystem functions such as carbon uptake…
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What Is the Role of <i>Archaea</i> in Plants? New Insights from the Vegetation of Alpine Bogs Open
Archaea are still an underdetected and little-studied part of the plant microbiome. We provide first and novel insights into Archaea as a functional component of the plant microbiome obtained by metagenomic analyses. Archaea were found to …
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Shifts in methanogenic community composition and methane fluxes along the degradation of discontinuous permafrost Open
The response of methanogens to thawing permafrost is an important factor for the global greenhouse gas budget. We tracked methanogenic community structure, activity, and abundance along the degradation of sub-Arctic palsa peatland permafro…
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Carbon dioxide flux and net primary production of a boreal treed bog: Responses to warming and water-table-lowering simulations of climate change Open
Midlatitude treed bogs represent significant carbon (C) stocks and are highly sensitive to global climate change. In a dry continental treed bog, we compared three sites: control, recent (1–3 years; experimental) and older drained (10–13 y…
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PEAT‐CLSM: A Specific Treatment of Peatland Hydrology in the NASA Catchment Land Surface Model Open
Peatlands are poorly represented in global Earth system modeling frameworks. Here we add a peatland‐specific land surface hydrology module (PEAT‐CLSM) to the Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM) of the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (G…
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Effects of water level alteration on carbon cycling in peatlands Open
Globally, peatlands play an important role in the carbon (C) cycle. High water level is a key factor in maintaining C storage in peatlands, but water levels are vulnerable to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. This review examin…
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High methane emissions dominated annual greenhouse gas balances 30 years after bog rewetting Open
Natural peatlands are important carbon sinks and sources of methane (CH4). In contrast, drained peatlands turn from a carbon sink to a carbon source and potentially emit nitrous oxide (N2O). Rewetting of peatlands thus potentially implies …
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Representing northern peatland microtopography and hydrology within the Community Land Model Open
Predictive understanding of northern peatland hydrology is a necessary precursor to understanding the fate of massive carbon stores in these systems under the influence of present and future climate change. Current models have begun to add…
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Deep peat warming increases surface methane and carbon dioxide emissions in a black spruce‐dominated ombrotrophic bog Open
Boreal peatlands contain approximately 500 Pg carbon (C) in the soil, emit globally significant quantities of methane ( CH 4 ), and are highly sensitive to climate change. Warming associated with global climate change is likely to increase…
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Bacterial Community Composition and Dynamics Spanning Five Years in Freshwater Bog Lakes Open
Lakes are excellent systems for investigating bacterial community dynamics because they have clear boundaries and strong environmental gradients. The results of our research demonstrate that bacterial community composition varies by year, …
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Last Millennium hydro-climate variability in Central–Eastern Europe (Northern Carpathians, Romania) Open
Proxy-based reconstructions of climate variability over the last millennium provide important insights for understanding current climate change within a long-term context. Past hydrological changes are particularly difficult to reconstruct…
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Persistent carbon sink at a boreal drained bog forest Open
Drainage of peatlands is expected to turn these ecosystems into carbon sources to the atmosphere. We measured carbon dynamics of a drained forested peatland in southern Finland over 4 years, including one with severe drought during growing…