Vegetation type is an important predictor of the arctic summer land surface energy budget.

Despite the importance of high-latitude surface energy budgets (SEBs) for land-climate interactions in the rapidly changing Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist. Here, we harmonize SEB observations across a network of vegetated and glaciated sites at circumpolar scale (1994-2021). Our variance-partitioning analysis identifies vegetation type as an important predictor for SEB-components during Arctic summer (June-August), compared to other SEB-drivers including climate, latitude and permafrost characteristics.

Design of the tundra rainfall experiment (TRainEx) to simulate future summer precipitation scenarios.

The majority of climate models predict severe increases in future temperature and precipitation in the Arctic. Increases in temperature and precipitation can lead to an intensification of the hydrologic cycle that strongly impacts Arctic environmental conditions. In order to investigate effects of future precipitation scenarios on ecosystems, precipitation manipulation experiments are being performed to simulate drought and extreme precipitation conditions.

Local and landscape-level diversity effects on forest functioning.

Research of the past decades has shown that biodiversity is a fundamental driver of ecosystem functioning. However, most of this biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research focused on experimental communities on small areas where environmental context was held constant. Whether the established BEF relationships also apply to natural or managed ecosystems that are embedded in variable landscape contexts remains unclear.

Terrestrial land-cover type richness is positively linked to landscape-level functioning.

Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) experiments have shown that local species richness promotes ecosystem functioning and stability. Whether this also applies under real-world conditions is still debated. Here, we focus on larger scales of space, time and ecological organization.

Biodiversity promotes primary productivity and growing season lengthening at the landscape scale.

Experiments have shown positive biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships in small plots with model communities established from species pools typically comprising few dozen species. Whether patterns found can be extrapolated to complex, nonexperimental, real-world landscapes that provide ecosystem services to humans remains unclear. Here, we combine species inventories from a large-scale network of 447 1-km plots with remotely sensed indices of primary productivity (years 2000-2015).

TWISTED DWARF1 Mediates the Action of Auxin Transport Inhibitors on Actin Cytoskeleton Dynamics.

Plant growth and architecture is regulated by the polar distribution of the hormone auxin. Polarity and flexibility of this process is provided by constant cycling of auxin transporter vesicles along actin filaments, coordinated by a positive auxin-actin feedback loop. Both polar auxin transport and vesicle cycling are inhibited by synthetic auxin transport inhibitors, such as 1-N-naphthylphthalamic acid (NPA), counteracting the effect of auxin; however, underlying targets and mechanisms are unclear.