Environmental drivers of increased ecosystem respiration in a warming tundra.

Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems are large reservoirs of organic carbon1,2. Climate warming may stimulate ecosystem respiration and release carbon into the atmosphere3,4. The magnitude and persistency of this stimulation and the environmental mechanisms that drive its variation remain uncertain5-7. This hampers the accuracy of global land carbon-climate feedback projections7,8. Here we synthesize 136 datasets from 56 open-top chamber in situ warming experiments located at 28 arctic and alpine tundra sites which have been running for less than 1 year up to 25 years. We show that a mean rise of 1.4 °C [confidence interval (CI) 0.9-2.0 °C] in air and 0.4 °C [CI 0.2-0.7 °C] in soil temperature results in an increase in growing season ecosystem respiration by 30% [CI 22-38%] (n = 136). Our findings indicate that the stimulation of ecosystem respiration was due to increases in both plant-related and microbial respiration (n = 9) and continued for at least 25 years (n = 136). The magnitude of the warming effects on respiration was driven by variation in warming-induced changes in local soil conditions, that is, changes in total nitrogen concentration and pH and by context-dependent spatial variation in these conditions, in particular total nitrogen concentration and the carbon:nitrogen ratio. Tundra sites with stronger nitrogen limitations and sites in which warming had stimulated plant and microbial nutrient turnover seemed particularly sensitive in their respiration response to warming. The results highlight the importance of local soil conditions and warming-induced changes therein for future climatic impacts on respiration.

Ground- and excited-state stability of the conformers of 3,5-dinitrocatechol and its complexes with W(VI) and V(V): combined theoretical and experimental study.

We performed a theoretical and experimental study of the (photo)stability of 3,5-dinitrocatechol (DNC) and its complexes with W(VI) and V(V). The investigation showed that irradiation of DNC is accompanied by a parallel proton migration from the hydroxy group to the neighboring NO2 group, which results in a large Stokes shift of the absorption and emission bands. It was found that W(VI) forms a more stable 1:2 complex than V(V). The complex is stable even under UV irradiation. The most stable W(VI)(DNC)2 conformer is comprised of two mutually perpendicular DNC molecules as ligands.

Extraction spectrophotometric determination of vanadium in natural waters and aluminium alloys using pyridyl azo resorcinol (PAR) and iodo-nitro-tetrazolium chloride (INT).

Extraction-spectrophotometric methods are developed for the determination of vanadium content in natural waters and aluminium alloys. They are based on the formation and subsequent extraction into chloroform of the ternary ion association complex of V(V) with PAR and INT in the presence of CDTA and NH(4)F as masking agents. Optimum pH range of the reaction is 5.5-7.5. Maximum absorbance of the extracted complex is at 560 nm. The method for determination of V(V) in drinking waters can be successfully applied at a concentration level of 3 ppb and higher without additional pre-concentration. Among studied more than 30 foreign ions potentially present in natural waters only Ca(II) can interfere. It is removed by precipitation as CaF(2) and filtration. A 40-fold excess of V(IV) does not interfere with determination of V(V) and can also be determined indirectly (after oxidation to V(V)). The proposed method is applied to analysis of model mixtures as well as to the analysis of tap and mineral waters. Beer's law is obeyed for up to 15 mug of V(V) in 40 ml aqueous phase. The accuracy and precision are reasonable. The RSD is in the range 6.5-23.2% for determination of 6.3 ppb V(V). The procedure for analysis of aluminium alloys differs from the procedure for analysis of waters by the order of introduction of the reagents. The macrocomponent does not interfere and is not separated. Mg, Mn, Cu, Zn, Fe, Cr, Ti and Zr do not interfere. A 25-fold excess of Ni interferes. The method is tested in the analysis of reference standards containing 0.005 and 0.007% V, respectively. The RSD is 1.4%.