Melbourne School of Land and Environment Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science

DSE Research Project 1.5

Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in forested landscapes

1 July 2006 - 30 June 2010

Project Manager: Dr Stefan Arndt

Concern about global change has focused most strongly on the deleterious effects of climate change, it is through the management of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) that we have an opportunity to mitigate climate change. Controls on fossil fuel emissions and manipulation of the terrestrial biosphere are key areas that could be used to manage climate change. However, we currently have only a partial understanding of how GHG are cycled through the earth system, especially through terrestrial / biological processes. We need to know more about the processes influencing the source and sink mechanisms cycling GHG if we are to increase the probability that policy and management interventions will be successful.

In order to respond to climate change appropriately we need to a) understand the magnitude of GHG emissions in various land-use forms, b) understand what effect a change in land-use may have on the magnitude of the emissions, c) investigate the fundamental processes and mechanisms that control the emissions and d) develop computer models that allow the prediction and up scaling of GHG emissions, climate change and the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems.

Dr Stefan Arndt, Associate Professor
Dr Stephen Livesley, Research Fellow
Dr Michael Tausz, Associate Professor
Benedikt Fest, PhD Student
Nina Hinko-Najera, PhD Student

Department of Sustainability and Environment - Project Manager Ian Mansergh
Forest Ecosystem Resources, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems
Department of Climate Change
NCAS

The project will measure greenhouse gas emissions using automated and manual measurement systems in a range of forested landscapes in Australia: plantation forests and native forests in Victoria and savannah ecosystems in NT. We will establish a new long-term research site in the Wombat Forest near Creswick that will be instrumented with new state-of-the-art methodology to measure carbon and greenhouse gas balances in forests.

Carbon sequestration in Victoria’s native forests has been studied by using existing data sources and upscaling to a Victoria wide scale. The modelling aspect of the project has been completed and a report is in preparation.

The impact of climate change on forest ecosystems will also be studied using measurements and modelling. The measurements will focus on a process understanding of the mechanisms that enable tree species to adapt to drought and salinity. Field sites in Australia and China will be used to investigate adaptive mechanisms of tree species to drought and salinity. One model species is Populus euphratica and it is envisaged that the ecophysiological studies in the field will greatly enhance our understanding of fundamental mechanisms of salt tolerance in trees. A second aspect is the investigation of climate change scenarios on C-sequestration in VIC’s forests. Using the calibrated and validated Forest DNDC model we will study the impact that 8 different climate scenarios will have on blue gum plantations in Victoria in order to evaluate the potential growth and the potential risk in different regions in Victoria.

Special Issue on Non-CO₂ greenhouse gas fluxes in Australian and New Zealand landscapes

The international journal Plant and Soil has published a Special Issue on “Non-CO2 greenhouse gas fluxes in Australian and New Zealand landscapes” in the August 2008 edition. The Special Issue was co-edited by Stephen Livesley and Stefan Arndt and contains 14 research papers presented at the Non-CO2 conference in May 2007 in Melbourne. The University of Melbourne features strongly in this special issue with multiple papers by Stephen Livesley and Deli Chen. The papers in the Special Issue report on measurements, modeling and mitigation options for N2O and CH4 flux in Australian and New Zealand landscapes. There are three key reviews covering the role of soil as a methane source and sink, the exchange of N2O and CH4 in New Zealand’s landscapes and a critical assessment of techniques commonly used to measure ecosystem trace gas exchange.

Greenhouse gas flux monitoring equipment
Stefan Arndt and Stephen Livesley were successful in obtaining funding from the AE Rowden-White Foundation for a Mobile Ecosystem Gas Exchange Analyser (MEGA, $160,000). This grant will be combined with funding obtained last year through the ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF, LE0882936, $270,000) to build a unique greenhouse gas monitoring systems for Australian ecosystems. This facility significantly enhances our measurement capacity to monitor greenhouse gas fluxes in forest ecosystems in Australia.

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Project outputs for the year 2009/2010 are shown below. All outputs for the project can be found here.

Publications

• Zeng F, Yan H, Arndt SK (2009) Leaf and whole tree adaptations to mild salinity in field grown Populus euphratica.  Tree Physiology 29: 1237-1246

• Kahmen A., Livesley S.J., Arndt S.K. (2009) High potential, but low actual, organic N uptake of dominant plant species in three Australian land-use types with intermediate N availability. Plant and Soil (DOI 10.1007/s11104-009-9960-x)
  

• Merchant A, Arndt SK, Rowell DM, Posch S, Callister A, Tausz M, Adams MA (2009) Seasonal changes in carbohydrates, cyclitols, and water relations of 3 field grown Eucalyptus species from contrasting taxonomy on a common site. Annals of Forest Science (in press)

Submitted

• Livesley SJ, Doherty BJ, Smith A, Navaud D, Wylie L, Arndt SK (2009) The exchange of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in urban garden systems: the impact of irrigation, fertiliser and mulch. Urban Ecosystems (submitted)

Engagement and Communications

Meeting on 12 Oct 2009 with Wil Blackburn, Ian Mansergh, and Gordon Friend to discuss project progress.

Conference oral presentations:
18 Aug 2009, IUFRO Division 4.01 conference, Mt Gambier, AUS: Stephen Livesley - Assessing the dynamics of non-CO2 greenhouse gas exchange in Australian forests and woodlands.
24 Aug 2009, iLEAPS conference Melbourne, AUS: Stephen Livesley – Soil greenhouse gas exchange in the year after plantation harvesting.
24 Aug 2009, iLEAPS conference Melbourne, AUS: Benedikt Fest – Soil-atmosphere greenhouse gas exchange in a temperate Eucalyptus regnans forest in Australia: a wildfire history perspective.
14 Sep 2009, GfOe - Dimensions of Ecology Conference, Bayreuth, GER: Stefan Arndt – Stress metabolites and osmotic adaptation of field grown Eucalyptus under seasonal drought stress
15 Sep 2009, GfOe - Dimensions of Ecology Conference, Bayreuth, GER: Stefan Arndt – Importance of organic nitrogen uptake in ecosystems with intermediate nitrogen availability

DSE seminar:
29 Sep 2009, Stefan Arndt – Climate Change mitigation options for natural and managed ecosystems in Australia.

Other presentations/seminars

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• Publication to be submitted on greenhouse gas balance in urban ecosystems
• Selection of Wombat Forest Long term Research Sites
• Publication to be submitted on tree stress tolerance
• Instrumentation of Wombat Forest Long Term Research Site
• Publication to be submitted on stable isotopes as climate indicators
• Publication to be submitted on greenhouse gas balance in forests
• Presentation of data set for greenhouse gas balance of Long Term Research Sites
  GHG balance of LTRS
• Short Executive synthesis of the results and implications of the entire study

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