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Northern peatlands are ecosystems with unique hydrological properties, storing about 400-500 Gt of carbon. As the production rate of organic material is higher than its decomposition, which is slowed down in the wet and cold environment, peatlands store a great amount of carbon. Carbon assimilated from the atmosphere during photosynthesis by plants is partly lost due to autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration as carbon dioxide (CO2), as methane (CH4) or/and as dissolved organic carbon. The proportion of each carbon component is strongly controlled by environmental conditions as temperature, radiation, precipitation and subsequent water table changes and active role of vegetation. With predicted changes in the global climate, changes in the influence of environmental parameters on peatland ecology are expected. Thus thorough research is essential for a better understanding of mechanisms which influence carbon cycling in peatlands. In this thesis, various components of the carbon cycle were studied at two boreal peatland sites (Ust Pojeg in Komi Republic in Russian Federation and Salmisuo in Eastern Finland) using the micrometeorological eddy covariance method. The focus was placed on the temporal changes of the controlling parameters, ranging from a few days during short snow thawing through the rest of the year. At the Salmisuo site, two measurement seasons allowed to address possible inter-annual variation. We observed that diurnal variations in methane emissions which are typically controlled by vegetation during the growing season, might appear during snow melt as a result of the influence of physical factors rather than biological factors. The diurnal pattern in methane emissions was caused by the interaction of the freeze-thaw cycle and near urface turbulence. During the night time, when surface temperatures fell below zero and caused formation of the ice layer, methane emissions were only around 0.8 mg m-2 h-1, however after the increase in temperature and melting of the ice layer they reached peak values of around 3 mg m-2 h-1. The near surface turbulence had a significant influence on methane emissions, however only after the thawing of the ice layer. The effect of changing environmental parameters over the year was further elaborated on a carbon dioxide time series from the Ust Pojeg site. The generally accepted effects of temperature on ecosystem respiration during the night are not stable throughout the year and can change rapidly during the growing season. Using moving window regression analysis I could show that the strength of the exponential relationship between ecosystem respiration and temperature is changing during the year. This was in correspondence with recent publications elaborating on sub-seasonal changes of the controlling parameters. In general, measurements from the Ust Pojeg site represent estimates of annual CO2 and CH4 fluxes with an annual carbon balance of -94.5 g C m-2 and a new contribution to the quantification of trace gases emissions from a Russian boreal peatland. The inter-annual comparison of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) measurements with previously published data on CH4 and DOC flux from the Salmisuo site showed that the NEE of CO2 is the most important component of the carbon balance at this site. However, primary production was not responsible for the inter-annual changes in NEE. Rather, the effects of water table position during the year had a strong influence on ecosystem respiration, which was probably due to the influence on soil respiration, and higher NEE was observed during the year with smaller primary production, but higher water table levels. The effects of higher precipitation and higher water table during the wet year were shown to increase CH4 flux and the export of DOC, but their effects could not compensate for changes in ecosystem respiration. In the presented thesis intra- and inter- annual changes in carbon flux components and their controls, in our case attributed mostly to hydrological conditions in combination with other environmental parameters as temperature and the role of peatland vegetation, are discussed.
Global change, amongst others characterized by increasing temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, an increase of extreme climatic events and continued atmospheric depositions of pollutants, is expected to severely impact forest ecosystems worldwide. The complex interplay between different factors acting upon tree growth, combined with regional patterns in climatic change calls for a region specific evaluation of the possible consequences on forest ecosystems. For northeastern Germany regional climate models identify a rise in temperatures and a change in precipitation patterns. Drier summers and wetter winters together with an increase in extreme weather events are seen as the most pronounced changes that will occur during the 21st century. In this thesis I analysed past growth rates and climate-growth relationships in different stands of beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and oak (Quercus robur L.) along a gradient of decreasing precipitation in a space for time approach. Special attention was paid to the influence of summer drought, soil waterlogging and the importance of site conditions in modulating the reactions to these climatic stressors. Departing from these retrospective analyses, future growth trends are modelled for beech, oak and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), based on projections of a regional climate model until the year 2100. Furthermore, I studied the influence of sudden and extreme shifts in hydrological conditions on the growth of oaks in a drained peatland that was subject to catastrophic rewetting. All analyses of this thesis are based on ring-width and wood anatomical features applying a variety of dendrochronological methods. The gradient approach revealed similar climate-growth relationships for beech and oak on drought exposed, sandy sites, where water availability during early summer was the main growth-limiting factor for both species. Decreasing precipitation rates towards the East are associated with higher drought susceptibility, especially for beech. As a result, competitive superiority of beech over oak decreases. In a drier future the competitive balance between the two species may shift (rank reversal). During the past decades beech has shown larger interannual growth variability and a higher number of growth depressions. These changes might indicate that increasing temperatures and climatic variability are already affecting its growth patterns and climate sensitivity. This is in line with the prospective modelling approach. According to our models, growth trends will turn negative for beech and oak towards the end of the 21st century, with beech showing the highest growth reduction (23% compared to the reference period 1971-2000). For pine, modelled growth rates show only minor changes. Whereas beech and oak shared a high common signal on the dry sites, the two species differed in high frequency ring patterns on the wet sites. On poorly drained, loamy soils beech, with its superficial root system, suffered from summer droughts. In contrast, on these sites ring-width of pedunculate oak was not correlated to summer moisture conditions resulting in differing interannual ring patterns between dry and wet sites. Wet periods with high soil water saturation did not have a negative influence on the growth of either species. Such a lack of response is not surprising for oak, which is generally known as rather tolerant to soil waterlogging, but it indicates an unexpectedly high tolerance of beech to stagnating wetness. Using the natural laboratory of an oak forest that suffered a catastrophic flooding I could show that slower grown trees that had likely been suppressed displayed a higher adaptive capacity compared with bigger, dominant trees. Many of the previously dominant individuals died within 18 years after the event. Trees that survived the groundwater rise displayed a typical ring pattern: growth was suppressed for a few years, but afterwards recovered and even surpassed previous growth rates, most likely as a result of competition release. The sudden hydrological change left a clear imprint in ring patterns and wood anatomical features in both the dying and the surviving trees. This differentiated imprint may be helpful for a better interpretation of growth patterns found in subfossil bog oaks, an important climate proxy of the Holocene. The insights gained from this thesis support existing concerns about drought induced growth decline for oak, but especially for beech. Changes in precipitation patterns might lead to wetter conditions during winter, but these will likely have only little effect on growth. Both s show rather high resilience to stagnating wetness. More likely, it are extreme events like prolonged droughts or heavy rainfalls that might breach thresholds in the ability of the two species to cope with too much or too little water. Such extreme events thus pose a strong risk to the future growth performance of both oak and beech.
Recent climate change has affected the forest system comprehensively. Northern hemisphere elevational treelines are considered as a key environment for monitoring the effects of current anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, trees from these areas are also widely employed in paleo-climate reconstructions. The stability of the tree growth climate relationship under current scenario is crucial for all tree ring based climate researches. It is important to investigate how trees respond to this rapid environmental change at altitudinal treelines. Tree cores from 21 treeline sites of three species (Pinus tabulaeformis, Picea crassifolia, and Sabina przewalskii) from Northeastern Tibetan have been conducted in this thesis. The instable correlations between tree growth and climate are the general response pattern of trees from all study sites in NE Tibetan Plateau. Picea crassifolia shows the most instable response to climate factors (mean monthly temperature and total monthly precipitation). Pinus tabulaeformis and Sabina przewalskii just showed instable and divergent responses to their main limiting climate factors but no clear trend was found which is limited by the few sample sites. Corresponding to divergent responses of Picea crassifolia to mean monthly temperature, most radial growth of Picea crassifolia were inhibited by this climate change type drought, only few trees within same sites grew faster due to temperature increasing during recent decades. The divergence response mainly started in last 30 years in six of eleven sample sites over the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau. North-westerly drier sites showed a large percentage of trees per site with a negative correlation to temperature and mostly southerly moister sites showed more mixed responses with both negatively and positively responding trees within site. Concurrent with the regional pattern, low elevation sites show mostly negative correlations with temperature and high elevation sites show more mixed responses. As the hydrothermal conditions of the investigation area changed to a drier and warmer combination, drought stress on tree growth have been intensifying over time and expanding spatially from the middle to most of our study area during the last half century. The Picea crassifolia tree growth climate relationship conducted on an elevational gradient with four different levels from upper treeline to lower treeline at the NE Tibetan Plateau. Results show that upper treeline trees show divergent growth trends and divergent responses in recent decades. Trees from lower treeline show a strengthening drought stress signal over time and no divergent growth trends within sites. This potential ecological reaction of tree populations to changing environmental conditions shows an implications for using trees to reconstruct climate, since the indiscriminate use of tree ring data from sites showing opposite responses to increasing warming could cause mis-calibration of tree ring based climate reconstructions, and over- or underestimation of carbon sequestration potential in biogeochemical models. The physiological response of Sabina przewalskii tree growth to major limiting climate factors based on the Vaganov-Shashkin (VS) model indicated that precipitation during the early growing season, especially in May and June, has significant effect on tree growth, while temperature mainly affects tree growth by warming-induced drought and by extending the growing season in the NE Tibetan Plateau. Under current and projected climate scenarios, modeling results predict an increase in radial growth of Sabina przewalskii around the Qaidam Basin, with the potential outcome that regional forests will increase their capacity to sequester carbon. However, most Picea crassifolia trees growing at lower elevations than Sabina przewalskii might be continue stressed by the warming induced drought and might decrease radial growth in future.