Description: Uncertainty in carbon cycling in terrestrial ecosystems contributes to overall uncertainty in Earth System Models. In particular, polar terrestrial ecosystems are understudied. Here, we focus on optical and radar remote sensing approaches to understand above-ground carbon dynamics related to vegetation as primary producers in tundra permafrost landscapes. In the ongoing Russian-German research cooperation and joint field expeditions we evaluate the applicability of remote sensing for assessing vegetation stocks and short-term fluxes in the Lena River Delta in the Siberian Arctic. New spaceborne satellite missions such as Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and ESA Data User Element DUE Permafrost provide useful services and data for this investigation. i) We evaluated and ground-truthed circumarctic-harmonized geospatial products of land cover and vegetation height from the ESA GlobPermafrost program for the Lena Delta region. The remote sensing products were derived from radar Sentinel-1 and optical Sentinel-2 satellite data. They are findable in the Arctic Permafrost Spatial Center (APGC) (apgc.awi.de) and are published under 10.1594/PANGAEA.897916, [Titel anhand dieser DOI in Citavi-Projekt übernehmen] and 10.1594/PANGAEA.897045 [Titel anhand dieser DOI in Citavi-Projekt übernehmen] . ii) We classified land cover using Sentinel-2 data based on in-situ vegetation data and optimized on biomass and wetness regimes. iii) We investigated the applicability of different land cover products for upscaling in-situ field-based biomass estimates to landscape-scale above-ground vegetation carbon stocks. iv) We investigated how disturbances enhance above-ground vegetation carbon cycling using in-situ data on vegetation community, biomass, and stand age and including remote sensing observations. Our research suggests that subarctic land cover needs to show biomass and moisture regimes to be applicable. Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite missions provide adequate spatial high resolution to upscale vegetation communities and biomass in permafrost tundra landscapes. Biomass is providing the magnitude of the carbon flux, whereas stand age is irreplaceable to provide the cycle rate. High disturbance regimes such as floodplains, valleys, and other areas of thermo-erosion are linked to high and rapid carbon fluxes compared to low disturbance on Yedoma upland tundra and holocene terraces with polygonal tundra.

Description: Chronic, low intensity herbivory by invertebrates, termed background herbivory, has been understudied in tundra, yet its impacts are likely to increase in a warmer Arctic. The magnitude of these changes is however hard to predict as we know little about the drivers of current levels of invertebrate herbivory in tundra. We assessed the intensity of invertebrate herbivory on a common tundra plant, the dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa-nana complex), and investigated its relationship to latitude and climate across the tundra biome. Leaf damage by defoliating, mining and gall-forming invertebrates was measured in samples collected from 192 sites at 56 locations. Our results indicate that invertebrate herbivory is nearly ubiquitous across the tundra biome but occurs at low intensity. On average, invertebrates damaged 11.2% of the leaves and removed 1.4% of total leaf area. The damage was mainly caused by external leaf feeders, and most damaged leaves were only slightly affected (12% leaf area lost). Foliar damage was consistently positively correlated with mid-summer (July) temperature and, to a lesser extent, precipitation in the year of data collection, irrespective of latitude. Our models predict that, on average, foliar losses to invertebrates on dwarf birch are likely to increase by 6–7% over the current levels with a 1 °C increase in summer temperatures. Our results show that invertebrate herbivory on dwarf birch is small in magnitude but given its prevalence and dependence on climatic variables, background invertebrate herbivory should be included in predictions of climate change impacts on tundra ecosystems.

Description: Chronic, low intensity herbivory by invertebrates, termed background herbivory, has been understudied in tundra, yet its impacts are likely to increase in a warmer Arctic. The magnitude of these changes is however hard to predict as we know little about the drivers of current levels of invertebrate herbivory in tundra. We assessed the intensity of invertebrate herbivory on a common tundra plant, the dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa-nana complex), and investigated its relationship to latitude and climate across the tundra biome. Leaf damage by defoliating, mining and gall-forming invertebrates was measured in samples collected from 192 sites at 56 locations. Our results indicate that invertebrate herbivory is nearly ubiquitous across the tundra biome but occurs at low intensity. On average, invertebrates damaged 11.2% of the leaves and removed 1.4% of total leaf area. The damage was mainly caused by external leaf feeders, and most damaged leaves were only slightly affected (12% leaf area lost). Foliar damage was consistently positively correlated with mid-summer (July) temperature and, to a lesser extent, precipitation in the year of data collection, irrespective of latitude. Our models predict that, on average, foliar losses to invertebrates on dwarf birch are likely to increase by 6–7% over the current levels with a 1 °C increase in summer temperatures. Our results show that invertebrate herbivory on dwarf birch is small in magnitude but given its prevalence and dependence on climatic variables, background invertebrate herbivory should be included in predictions of climate change impacts on tundra ecosystems.

Description: Vegetation biomass is a globally important climate-relevant terrestrial carbon pool. Landsat, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 satellite missions provide a landscape-level opportunity to upscale tundra vegetation communities and biomass in high latitude terrestrial environments. We assessed the applicability of landscape-level remote sensing for the low Arctic Lena Delta region in Northern Yakutia, Siberia, Russia. The Lena Delta is the largest delta in the Arctic and is located North of the treeline and the 10 °C July isotherm at 72° Northern Latitude in the Laptev Sea region. During the LENA2018 expedition, we set up plots for plant projective cover and Above Ground Biomass (AGB) and sampled shrubs for shrub-ring analyses. AGB is providing the magnitude of the carbon flux, whereas stand age is irreplaceable to provide the cycle rate. AGB data and shrub age data clearly show a separation between i) low disturbance landscape types with dominant AGB moss contribution, but always low vascular plant AGB (〈0.5 kg m-2) characterised by old shrubs of several decades of stand age versus ii) a much higher vascular plant AGB contribution (〉 0.5 kg m-2) with only young shrubs in high disturbance regimes. The low disturbance regimes are represented on the Holocene and Pleistocene delta terraces in form of azonal polygonal tundra complexes and softly dissected valleys with zonal tussock tundra. In contrast, the high disturbance regimes are sites of thermo-erosion such as along thermo-erosional valleys and on floodplains. We upscaled AGB and above ground carbon pool ages using a Sentinel-2 satellite acquisition from early August 2018. We classified via classification training using Elementary Sampling Units that are the 30 m x 30 m vegetation field plots. We then used the land cover classes and grouped them according to their settings either in high disturbance or low disturbance regimes with each associated AGB value ranges and shrub age regimes. We also evaluated circum-Arctic harmonized ESA GlobPermafrost land cover and vegetation height remote sensing products covering subarctic to Arctic land cover types for the central Lena Delta. The products are freely available and published in the PANGAEA data repository under https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.897916 and https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.897045. ESA GlobPermafrost land cover and vegetation height remote sensing products and our Sentinel-2 derived AGB product for the central Lena Delta shows realistic spatial patterns of landcover classes and biomass distribution at landscape level. However, in all products, the high biomass patches of high shrubs in the tundra landscape could not spatially be resolved as they are confined to patchy and linear distribution, not representing large enough areas suitable for upscaling. We found that high disturbance regimes with linked high and rapid AGB fluxes are distributed mainly on the floodplains and as patches along thermoerosioal features, e.g. valleys. Whereas the low disturbance landscapes on Yedoma upland tundra and Holocene terraces occur with larger area coverage representing decades slower and in magnitude smaller AGB fluxes.

Description: Tundra is primarily a habitat for shrub growth, not trees, but growth of prostrate forms of trees has been reported occasionally from the subarctic tundra region. In the light of on-going climate change, climate sensitivity studies of these unique trees are essential to predict vegetation dynamics and potential northward expansion of boreal forest tree species into tundra. Here we studied one of the northernmost Larix Mill. trees and Betula nana L. shrubs (72°N) from the Siberian tundra for the common period 1980-2017. We took advantage of the discovery of a single cohort of prostrate Larix trees within a tundra ecosystem, i.e., ca. 60 km northwards from the northern treeline, and compared climate-growth relationships of the two species. Both woody plants were sensitive to the July temperature, however this relationship was stable across the entire study period (1980-2017) only for Betula nana chronology. Additionally, radial growth of Larix trees became negatively correlated to temperatures during the previous summer. In recent period moisture sensitivity between Larix trees and Betula nana shrubs was contrasting, with generally wetter soil conditions favoring Larix trees growth and dryer conditions promoting Betula nana growth. Our study indicates that Larix trees radial growth in recent years is more sensitive to moisture than to summer air temperatures, whereas temperature sensitivity of Betula nana shrub is stable over time. We provide first detailed insight into the annual resolution on Larix tree growth sensitivity to climate in the heart of the tundra. The potentially higher Betula nana shrub resistance to warmer and drier climate versus Larix trees on a tundra revealed in our study needs to be further examined across habitats of various soil, moisture and permafrost status.