New Publication - Poleward shift of agriculture

Due to climate change, agricultural production shifts polewards, exposing subarctic forests to enhanced land-use change to agricultral land. The induced changes in microclimate may have a potentially great influence on decomposition of organic matter, although they are poorly studied in subarctic soils. An experiment on potential litter decomposition should help in closing this research gap. For this study, teabags served as standardized plant material and have been buried in forest, grassland and cropland soils, together with temperature loggers to quantify the effect of land- use change on soil temperature and litter decomposition. On average, forest soils in northern Canada are 2°C cooler than agricultural soils, which led to enhanced litter decomposition in irrigated croplands, not in grasslands.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1063-2023