Browsing by Subject "boreaalinen vyöhyke"
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(2022)Climate change is going to bring a change for ecosystems and their abiotic and biotic processes. Relationship between climate and ecosystems is usually studied using macroclimatic data, but plants have been found to be more closely associated with changes in microclimates. Microclimates involve temperature, wind, radiation, and humidity conditions near the ground surface. Microclimates can change over short distances creating differences for areas general climatic conditions. Microclimates can help plants to survive in the edge of their dispersal area or create stronger variations in temperatures. Not much research conducted on microclimates in boreal ecosystems yet. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how environmental variables affect temperatures in different seasons inside boreal biome. Microclimates are a combination of physical processes and environmental variables. Main physical processes are energy released and bound by changes in the state of water, heat flux between soil and air, and radiation balance. Environmental variables are key components on defining how physical processes occur in the area affecting the microclimatic temperatures. Topography creates change in the lapse rates via altitude variations, and slope curves and orientation change radiation and moisture conditions. Radiation and moisture conditions also vary according to the vegetation factors, for example in the forest where canopy cover and vegetation height create differences in physical processes. Water masses and mires affect the area’s moisture conditions and heat flux between air and water. Heat flux between air and soil on the other hand is affected by quality of soil and wind conditions. Wind currents affect the mixing of different layers of air and the cold air pooling together with local topography. Relative influence of the environmental variables was studied using 8 study areas located in different boreal climatic zones. Study sites included 50 to 100 temperature meters, covering different environmental conditions in the area. Temperature data were collected at a height of 15 cm above the ground over a two-year period. In this thesis explanatory variables where canopy cover, radiation, slope, wind, distance to forest edge, TWI, and water and wetland portions. GAM-models were generated for different temperature variables for different months and years. Explanation ability of the model was evaluated with bootstrap-method. Relative influence of the explanatory variables was examined by variable randomization. Models explanatory power was highest in the southern study areas and decreased slightly when moving to the northern sites. There was a positive correlation between model explanatory power and its stability. Based on this the results are more reliable in the southern sites and during the summer. Temperatures observed in microclimates followed the changes in the macroclimatic conditions. In the northern areas, the main environmental factors explaining temperature variations were mainly topographic variables such as slope, wind, and TWI. In the southern areas vegetation variables like canopy cover, distance to forest edge and wetland portion were more relevant in explaining the temperature variations. Results also suggest that topography driven wind conditions are an important variable in the northern areas. Wind was found to decrease temperatures in winter months and increase temperatures in summer. The influence of wind has not yet been taken into consideration in many previous studies, as it is affected by several different factors. Further research into the factors affecting microclimatic temperatures is important in order to determine more precisely the differences between the environmental factors influencing the temperatures and their relative significance in different years. However, the temperature variables occurring in the boreal zone can be explained by examining the topographic and vegetation variables.
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(2023)Soil moisture plays a key role in ecosystems. Soil moisture varies spatially and temporally, and the variations are influenced by many different factors. On a large scale, climate has a large effect on soil moisture, but more locally, especially topography, soil and vegetation become important factors. In addition, mean soil moisture content affects whether soil moisture variations are greatest when soil is dry or moist. Climate change will significantly affect soil moisture around the world, and effects will also be visible in the boreal forest. Therefore, it is important to study soil moisture more comprehensively in boreal environment. The purpose of this thesis is to find out how soil moisture varies spatially and temporally, and how topography, soil and vegetation explain this variation in different parts of the boreal forest and in different environments. Study area covers eight areas of varying size (3,5–37 km2) in the boreal forest around Finland. Each study area has 44–96 study points from which soil moisture has been measured every 15 minutes during July 2020. Mean and standard deviation of soil moisture (response variables) of each research point were calculated from the measurements, of which the mean describes the spatial variation of soil moisture and the standard deviation the temporal variation. The response variables were explained by environmental variables. Variables explaining topography’s effect were altitude, SAGA wetness index (SWI), topographic position index (TPI) and radiation. Vegetation was explained by canopy cover and site fertility class, and soil was explained by soil class. The effect of environmental variables on spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture was analysed using a generalized additive model (GAM), which was fitted for each study area and for both response variables separately. Explanatory power of the models was examined with an adjusted R2 value using the bootstrap method. Relative importance of the individual environmental variables in the model was examined by randomizing the variables, and the direction of the effect of the environmental variables was examined using response curves. Soil moisture varied considerably spatially and temporally within the study areas and between the areas. Soil moisture was generally high in study areas with a lot of peatlands, and moisture varied most spatially usually in topographically heterogeneous areas. Often, the temporal variation of moisture was highest on dryer study areas and lowest on moister areas. Indeed, it was found that when the mean soil moisture was high, the standard deviation was often small and vice versa. Topographic factors influenced to the mean and standard deviation of soil moisture more in the northern than in the southern regions, while the role of canopy cover was emphasized in the southern regions when explaining the mean moisture. Soil influenced to the moisture more in the northern than in the southern areas. From all variables, SWI clearly explained the best both the mean and standard deviation of moisture. Canopy cover and radiation also explained well the mean moisture in a part of the study areas. In addition to SWI, the standard deviation of moisture was best explained by site fertility class and soil class. Altitude and TPI rarely explained the mean and standard deviation of moisture well. SWI often increased moisture and decreased moisture’s temporal variability in the study areas, but the directions of the effects of other environmental variables varied a lot between areas. This study shows that the large spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture in different environments of the boreal forest is dominated by different factors, and even the same environmental factors affect soil moisture in very different ways between areas. Research must be continued to get a better general picture of the factors affecting soil moisture variations in the boreal forest, and to be able to prepare better for the environmental changes caused by climate change.
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