Palynology, source vegetation, environment and age of ODP Site 188-1166 sediments

Twenty-three core catcher samples from Site 1166 (Hole 1166A) in Prydz Bay were analyzed for their palynomorph content, with the aims of determining the ages of the sequence penetrated, providing information on the vegetation of the Antarctic continent at this time, and determining the environments under which deposition occurred. Dinocysts, pollen and spores, and foraminiferal test linings were recovered from most samples in the interval from 142.5 to 362.03 meters below seafloor (mbsf). The interval from 142.5 to 258.72 mbsf yielded palynomorphs indicative of a middle-late Eocene age, equivalent to the lower-middle Nothofagidites asperus Zone of the Gippsland Basin of southeastern Australia. The Prydz Bay sequence represents the first well-dated section of this age from East Antarctica. Dinocysts belonging to the widespread "Transantarctic Flora" give a more confident late Eocene age for the interval 142.5-220.5 mbsf. The uppermost two cores within this interval, namely, those from 142.5 and 148.36 mbsf, show significantly higher frequencies of dinocysts than the cores below and suggest that an open marine environment prevailed at the time of deposition. The spore and pollen component may reflect a vegetation akin to the modern rainforest scrubs of Tasmania and New Zealand. Below 267 mbsf, sparse microfloras, mainly of spores and pollen, are equated with the Phyllocladidites mawsonii Zone of southeastern Australia, which is of Turonian to possibly Santonian age. Fluvial to marginal marine environments of deposition are suggested. The parent vegetation from this interval is here described as "Austral Conifer Woodland." The same Late Cretaceous microflora occurs in two of the cores above the postulated unconformity at 267 mbsf. In the core at 249.42 mbsf, the Late Cretaceous spores and pollen are uncontaminated by any Tertiary forms, suggesting that a clast of this older material has been sampled; such a clast may reflect transport by ice during the Eocene. At 258.72 mbsf, Late Cretaceous spores and pollen appear to have been recycled into the Eocene sediments.

Landsat derived percent vegetation cover of Israel (as of 2003)

Wildfires are part of the Mediterranean ecosystem, however, in Israel all wildfires are human caused, either intentionally or un-intentionally. In this study we aimed to develop and test a new method for mapping fire scars from MODIS imagery, to examine the temporal and spatial patterns of wildfires in Israel in the 2000s and to examine the factors controlling Israel's wildfire regime. To map the fires we used two 'off-the-shelf' MODIS fire products as our basis-the 1 km MODIS Collection 5 fire hotspots, the 500 m MCD45A1 burnt areas-and we created a new set of fire scar maps from the 250 m MOD13Q1 product. We carried out a cross comparison of the three MODIS based wildfire scar maps and evaluated them independently against the wild fire scars mapped from 30 m Landsat TM imagery. To examine the factors controlling wildfires we used GIS layers of rainfall, land use, and a Landsat-based national vegetation map. Wildfires occurred in areas where annual rainfall was above 250 mm, mostly in areas with herbaceous vegetation. Wildfire frequency was especially high in the Golan Heights and in the foothills of the Judean mountains, and a high correspondence was found between military training zones and the spatial distribution of fire scars. The use of MODIS satellite images enabled us to map wildfires at a national scale due to the high temporal resolution of the sensor. Our MOD13Q1 based mapping of fire scars adequately mapped large (>1 km**2) fires with accuracies above 80%. Such large fires account for a large proportion of all fires, and pose the greatest threats. This database can aid managers in determining wildfire risks in space and in time.

A fractional vegetation cover remote sensing product on pan-arctic scale with link to geotiff image

The paper presents first results of a pan-boreal scale land cover harmonization and classification. A methodology is presented that combines global and regional vegetation datasets to extract percentage cover information for different vegetation physiognomy and barren for the pan-arctic region within the ESA Data User Element Permafrost. Based on the legend description of each land cover product the datasets are harmonized into four LCCS (Land Cover Classification System) classifiers which are linked to the MODIS Vegetation Continuous Field (VCF) product. Harmonized land cover and Vegetation Continuous Fields products are combined to derive a best estimate of percentage cover information for trees, shrubs, herbaceous and barren areas for Russia. Future work will concentrate on the expansion of the developed methodology to the pan-arctic scale. Since the vegetation builds an isolation layer, which protects the permafrost from heat and cold temperatures, a degradation of this layer due to fire strongly influences the frozen conditions in the soil. Fire is an important disturbance factor which affects vast processes and dynamics in ecosystems (e.g. biomass, biodiversity, hydrology, etc.). Especially in North Eurasia the fire occupancy has dramatically increased in the last 50 years and has doubled in the 1990s with respect to the last five decades. A comparison of global and regional fire products has shown discrepancies between the amounts of burn scars detected by different algorithms and satellite data.

Vegetation, soil and site characteristics of samples taken along the Yamal Transet in 2007-2008

The overarching goal of the Yamal portion of the Greening of the Arctic project is to examine how the terrain and anthropogenic factors of reindeer herding and resource development combined with the climate variations on the Yamal Peninsula affect the spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation change and how these changes are in turn affecting traditional herding of the indigenous people of the region. The purpose of the expeditions was to collect groundobservations in support of remote sensing studies at four locations along a transect that traverses all the major bioclimate subzones of the Yamal Peninsula. This data report is a summary of information collected during the 2007 and 2008 expeditions. It includes all the information from the 2008 data report (Walker et al. 2008) plus new information collected at Kharasavey in Aug 2008. The locations included in this report are Nadym (northern taiga subzone), Laborovaya (southern tundra = subzone E of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM), Vaskiny Dachi (southern typical tundra = subzone D), and Kharasavey (northern typical tundra = subzone C). Another expedition is planned for summer 2009 to the northernmost site at Belyy Ostrov (Arctic tundra = subzone B). Data are reported from 10 study sites - 2 at Nadym, 2 at Laborovaya, and 3 at Vaskiny Dachi and 3 at Kharasavey. The sites are representative of the zonal soils and vegetation, but also include variation related to substrate (clayey vs. sandy soils). Most of the information was collected along 5 transects at each sample site, 5 permanent vegetation study plots, and 1-2 soil pits at each site. The expedition also established soil and permafrost monitoring sites at each location. This data report includes: (1) background for the project, (2) general descriptions and photographs of each locality and sample site, (3) maps of the sites, study plots, and transects at each location, (4) summary of sampling methods used, (5) tabular summaries of the vegetation data (species lists, estimates of cover abundance for each species within vegetation plots, measured percent ground cover of species along transects, site factors for each study plot), (6) summaries of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and leaf area index (LAI) along each transect, (7) soil descriptions and photos of the soil pits at each study site, (8) summaries of thaw measurements along each transect, and (9) contact information for each of the participants. One of the primary objectives was to provide the Russian partners with full documentation of the methods so that Russian observers in future years could repeat the observations independently.

(Table 1) Carbon pools in different vegetation components in grazed and ungrazed plots near Ny-Ålesund, Spitzbergen

The carbon (C) sink strength of arctic tundra is under pressure from increasing populations of arctic breeding geese. In this study we examined how CO2 and CH4 fluxes, plant biomass and soil C responded to the removal of vertebrate herbivores in a high arctic wet moss meadow that has been intensively used by barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) for ca. 20 years. We used 4 and 9 years old grazing exclosures to investigate the potential for recovery of ecosystem function during the growing season (July 2007). The results show greater above- and below-ground vascular plant biomass within the grazing exclosures with graminoid biomass being most responsive to the removal of herbivory whilst moss biomass remained unchanged. The changes in biomass switched the system from net emission to net uptake of CO2 (0.47 and -0.77 µmol/m**2/s in grazed and exclosure plots, respectively) during the growing season and doubled the C storage in live biomass. In contrast, the treatment had no impact on the CH4 fluxes, the total litter C pool or the soil C concentration. The rapid recovery of the above ground biomass and CO2 fluxes demonstrates the plasticity of this high arctic ecosystem in terms of response to changing herbivore pressure.