Goose grubbing and warming suppress summer net ecosystem CO uptake differentially across high-Arctic tundra habitats.

Environmental changes, such as climate warming and higher herbivory pressure, are altering the carbon balance of Arctic ecosystems; yet, how these drivers modify the carbon balance among different habitats remains uncertain. This hampers our ability to predict changes in the carbon sink strength of tundra ecosystems. We investigated how spring goose grubbing and summer warming-two key environmental-change drivers in the Arctic-alter CO fluxes in three tundra habitats varying in soil moisture and plant-community composition.

Controlling the stock or the habitat - The crisis of native invasive encroachment in the grazing land of Norwegian reindeer husbandry.

Climate change negatively impacts reindeer grazing in Fennoscandia, with the encroachment of Empetrum nigrum (crowberry) being a significant, yet largely unrecognized problem. Crowberry encroachment affects the neighboring palatable vegetation negatively, homogenizing the pasture and decreasing ecosystem biodiversity. Current husbandry management aims are based on sustainable use of the pasture land, yet pasture quality is not considered a central indicator.

The positive effect of plant diversity on soil carbon depends on climate.

Little is currently known about how climate modulates the relationship between plant diversity and soil organic carbon and the mechanisms involved. Yet, this knowledge is of crucial importance in times of climate change and biodiversity loss. Here, we show that plant diversity is positively correlated with soil carbon content and soil carbon-to-nitrogen ratio across 84 grasslands on six continents that span wide climate gradients.

Novel frontier in wildlife monitoring: Identification of small rodent species from fecal pellets using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS).

Small rodents are prevalent and functionally important across the world's biomes, making their monitoring salient for ecosystem management, conservation, forestry, and agriculture. There is a growing need for cost-effective and noninvasive methods for large-scale, intensive sampling. Fecal pellet counts readily provide relative abundance indices, and given suitable analytical methods, feces could also allow for the determination of multiple ecological and physiological variables, including community composition.