Highlights 2018 CENPERM highlights of 2018 include examples of intensive fieldwork and laboratory incubations and how these two components can be integrated in process modelling. Three papers below highlight the benefits of plot level based studies of volatile organic compound (VOC) production, multi-year measurements of root growth combined with ecosystem manipulations, and the application of such data in a biogeochemical process model in which ecosystem functioning is investigated. 1. Permafrost thaw allows biological activity in previously frozen ground, leading to a potential production and release of climate-relevant gases. This has been shown for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Now a new study published by Kramshøj et al. in Nature Communications (2018) shows that microorganisms in thawing permafrost play an important role in the production of a high amount and diversity of VOCs. VOCs are known to be released from plants to cope with stress and to communicate with other organisms, but less is known about their release from sediments. The new study demonstrates that substantial amounts of ethanol and methanol and more than 300 other organic compounds can be produced and released from Greenlandic permafrost samples upon thaw. Even more surprisingly, VOCs from thawing permafrost may not be released to the atmosphere, as the results also show that unfrozen soil layers above the permafrost zone can consume the VOCs as fast as VOCs are released from the thawing permafrost. Therefore, the actual release of VOCs from thawing permafrost to the atmosphere is closely linked to processes occurring on the way from the deeper permafrost layers through top soil to the atmosphere. 2. In wet tundra ecosystems, covering vast areas of the Arctic, the belowground plant biomass exceeds the aboveground, making root dynamics a crucial component of the nutrient cycling and the carbon budget. In Frontiers in Plant Science, DImperio et al. (2018) quantify the single and combined effects of increased winter snow deposition by snow fences and summer warming by open top chambers (OTCs) on root dynamics in a wetland on Disko Island (West Greenland). Over the 2014 growing season, minirhizotron observations show that root growth continues beyond the main growing season, and that plots exposed to experimental warming show a significant increase in both root number and root length. In addition, plots with increased snow accumulation show a significant reduction of root diameter. These results indicate a fast response by the ecosystem to changes in air temperature and precipitation. Hence, in the short-term, summer warming may lead to increased root depth and belowground C allocation, whereas increased winter snow precipitation may reduce root production or favor specific plant species by means of reduced growing season length or increased nutrient cycling. 3. Terrestrial carbon cycling in the high Arctic tundra depends on ecosystem responses to climatic warming and associated changes in environmental conditions. However, only a few studies aim to quantify long-term carbon budget in the high Arctic tundra, simply due to lack of sufficient measurements. In the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, Wenxin et al. (2018) are the first to use a long time series of CO2 flux measurements in Northeast Greenland to calibrate and validate a process-oriented model (CoupModel). This allows a unique quantification of various components of the carbon Mapping snow cover by using a drone in Blæsedalen, Disko, Wes t Greenland. Photo: Bo Elber ling 6 CENPERM Annual Report 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 CENPERM Center for Permafrost Field sites Brønlundhus Qaanaaq Svalbard Longyearbyen Greenland Zackenberg Disko Qajaa Sweden Kangerlussuaq Nuuk Narsarsuaq Abisko Sermilik Directors welcome Visions and aims Highlights 2018 Højdepunk ter 2018 Revealing the tundras secrets from space Publications & conferences Communication & outreach Educational activities Ongoing research projects & graduate students International collaborators & funding CENPERM staff 3 4 6 8 10 12 1 2 CENPERM Annual Report 2018 Directors welcome 2018 was a very busy year dominated by the activities reflecting CENPERMs next phase. Several new PhD projects have been initiated focussing on changes in precipitation and water movement across the landscape, transport and availability of nutrients and ecosystems responses. The im Visions and aims Center for Permafrost Microbial activity Plant ecology CENPERM Permafrost soil & landscape dynamics CENPERM integrates multidisciplinary research of biogeochemical and physical processes in a climate-vegetation-soil-microorganismpermafrost approach in transects across the major c CENPERM Annual Report 2018 5 Highlights 2018 CENPERM highlights of 2018 include examples of intensive fieldwork and laboratory incubations and how these two components can be integrated in process modelling. Three papers below highlight the benefits of plot level based studies of volatile organic compound (VOC) production, mult budget for a typical and wide-spread heathlandtype ecosystem in Greenland. Two main results can be highlighted: (1) more than 13% of the carbon turnover measured as respiration occurs during the non-growing season and (2) the ecosystem is overall a weak C sink without any significant changes to be n Højdepunkter 2018 Højdepunkterne for CENPERM i 2018 omfatter tre eksempler på intensivt feltarbejde og laboratorie-inkubationer, samt hvordan disse to komponenter kan integreres i procesmodellering. De udvalgte artikler beskæftiger sig med studier af (1) produktion af flygtige organiske forbindelser serie af CO2-flux målinger i Nordøstgrønland til at kalibrere og validere en procesorienteret model (CoupModel). Dette muliggør en unik kvantificering af forskellige elementer i kulstofregnskabet for økosystemet i et tundralandskab, der er en typisk landskabstype for store dele af Grønland. To hoved Revealing the tundras secrets from space by Mojtaba Karami, PhD student, CENPERM, University of Copenhagen Dozens of spaceborne platforms are currently imaging the earths surface, and this number is only expected to grow over the coming years. Using the wealth of data these instruments create, we c tion of these processes to be able to upscale them from the field level to larger extents, for example the entire landscape, region or the Arctic. Tools like fixed cameras, drones, and flux towers help us to gain highly detailed and reliable estimates of the landscapelevel dynamics, but they can do Publications & conferences Akperov, M., Rinke, A., Mokhov, I. I., Matthes, H., Semenov, V. A., Adakudlu, M.,... Zhang, W. (2018). Cyclone activity in the Arctic from an ensemble of regional climate models (Arctic CORDEX). Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 123, 2537-2554. Cable, S., Chris archaeological and environmental archives of the Arctic. Antiquity 92, 573-586. Karami, M., Westergaard-Nielsen, A., Normand, S., Treier, U., Elberling, B., Hansen, B.U. (2018). A phenology-based approach to the classification of Arctic tundra ecosystems in Greenland. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry Schmidt, N.M., Mosbacher, J.B., Vesterinen, E.J., Roslin, T., Michelsen, A. (2018). Limited dietary overlap amongst resident Arctic herbivores in winter: complementary insights from complementary methods. Oecologia 187, 689-699. Scott, D.L., Bradley, R.L., Bellenger, J.-P., Houle, D., Gundale, M.J., Technical reports Invited speakers Lund, M., Sigsgaard, C., Abermann, J. Skov, K., Friborg, T., Hansen, B.U. (2018). Extreme rain event what are consequences for Arctic Ecosystems. In: Christensen, T.R. & Topp-Jørgensen, E. Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Annual Report Cards 2017. Danish Centre for Communication & outreach CENPERM continued its series of weekly talks at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management. These seminars were also held for PhD students and postdocs to present specific parts of their work, to create a forum for sharing of knowledge, problems, and solut Elberling, B. Klima og permafrost i Nordøstgrønland: Når plantevækst og permafrost er to sider af samme sag. Gentoftes Kulturnat (Det Grønlandske Selskab), Charlottenlund. Sep. 28. Elberling, B. Klima og permafrost i Grønland. Offentligt foredrag i Videnskabernes Selskab, København. Dec. 3. http://w Oct. 4. Jörg Schaller, Assistant professor, University Bayreuth, Environmental Geochemistry. Silicon and calcium effects on permafrost phosphorus mobilization, implications for soil respiration. Oct. 11. Benny Guralnik, Postdoc, CAPRES A/S & DTU Nanotech. Novel methods for environmental palaeo-therm Educational activities CENPERMs activities in 2018 include a number of educational efforts. These include both arctic field courses and classic university courses at the basic and advanced levels at the University of Copenhagen. In addition to course taught, a number of M.Sc. theses have been superv Arctic biology, Dept. of Biology, University of Copenhagen, spring, R. Rinnan, A. Michelsen, A. Priemé. Arctic nature and society, The Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, spring, B. Elberling. Climate change and biogeochemical cycles. Dept. of Biology, University of Copenhag Ongoing research projects & graduate students Like previous years, a special Master theses workshop was held in March with discussion and presentations of projects in progress. A number of the master students participated in the CENPERM fieldwork in Greenland and Northern Sweden. Postdoctoral projec Ongoing PhD projects at CENPERM 2018 Baggesen, Nanna: Emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) from a subarctic heath ecosystem, using a PTR-MS that allows for diurnal measurements on a fine time resolution. Supervisor: Riikka Rinnan. Fenger-Nielsen, Rasmus: Predicting and mapping en Ongoing MSc projects at CENPERM 2018 Andersen, Emil Alexander Sherman: Vegetation analysis and soil biogeochemical characteristics in the Nuuk region, Greenland in relation to archaeological sites and climate change. Supervisors: Anders Michelsen and Bo Elberling. Frendrup, Laura Lønstrup: The impac Ryde, Amalie: Herbivore-induced volatile organic compounds, and changes through an elevation gradient, induced by winter moth on mountain birch in the Subarctic, Tromsø. Supervisors: Riikka Rinnan and Elizabeth Jakobsen Neilson. Skardhamar, Mira Nordsmark: Climate change impacts on tundra litter BVO International collaborators & funding Research activities at CENPERM are linked to a number of well-established international arctic networks. These cooperation agreements are supplemented by a strong affiliation to internationally recognized researchers. CENPERM has continuously extended the inter Northern Arizona University and OEB Harvard University, USA: Analyzing phenocam images. Scientific publication. Russian Academy of Science, Russia: M. G. Akperov. Arctic cyclones. Scientific publications. Stanford University, USA: A. Ahlström. Modelling large-scale C cycle. Stockholm University, Swe University of Oslo, Department of Geosciences, Norway: B. Etzelmuller, S. Westermann. Permafrost modelling. O. Humlum; Field work (and data analyses) of geomorphology at Disko, W. Greenland. University of Montana, USA: F. Gilman. Disko soil microbial studies. University of Sherbrooke, Canada: J.P. B Private Danish funding Velux Foundation: REMAINS of Greenland (REsearch and Management of Archaeological sites IN a changing environment and Society). Grant holder: Jørgen Hollesen. On behalf of CENPERM: Bo Elberling (20162019): DKK 5.0 mio. International funding Austrian Science Fund (FWF): Erwin-S CENPERM staff 30 Researchers Ambus Per Lennart Andersen Thorbjørn J. Danielsen Birgitte Elberling Bo Faucherre Samuel Friborg Thomas Hansen Birger Ulf Hollesen Jørgen Karami Mojtaba Kroon Aart Michelsen Anders Permin Aya Priemé Anders Rinnan Riikka Ro-Poulsen Helge Rousk Kathrin Schurgers Guy Seco CENPERM staff PhD students Baggesen Cable Faucherre Fenger-Nielsen Karami Kramshøj Pedersen Permin Rasmussen Rieksta Simin St Pierre Wang Xu Zastruzny Nanna Stefanie Samuel Rasmus Mojtaba Magnus Emily Pickering Aya Laura H. Jolanta Tihomir Kyra Peiyan Wenyi Sebastian PhD student PhD student PhD st ANNUAL REPORT 2018 The Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) is an independent organization established by the Danish Parliament in 1991 with the objective to promote and stimulate basic research at the highest international level at the frontiers of all scientific fields. The Center of Excell