restoring-grassland-multifunctionality

title_for_slug: restoring-grassland-multifunctionality

en: plants mineralization fungi soil-biodiversity grassland nematodes restoration biodiversity ecosystem-multifunctionality bacteria

en: Functional diversity above_belowground fauna

en: Please note that C.sto and Corg have been corrected.

en: Please note that EMF, MF.below, MF.abio and Soil.hetero have been corrected.

en:
Please cite this paper together with the citation for the datafile.

Resch, M. C., Schütz, M., Buchmann, N., Frey, B., Graf, U., van der Putten, W. H., Zimmermann, S., Risch, A. C. 2021. Evaluating long-term success in grassland restoration – an ecosystem multifunctionality approach. Ecological Applications 31, e02271.

 Study area

The study was conducted in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, in and around two nature reserves Eigental and Altläufe der Glatt (47°27’ to 47°29’ N, 8°37’ to 8°32’ E, 417 to 572 m a.s.l.). All studied grasslands were located with a radius of approximately 4 km. Average monthly temperatures range from 0.7 ± 2.0 °C (January) to 19.0 ± 1.5 °C (July), and monthly precipitation range from 60 ± 42 mm (January) to 118 ± 46 mm (July [maxima]; 1989-2017; MeteoSchweiz 2018). In our study, we focused on semi-dry and semi-wet oligo- to mesotrophic grasslands characterized by high plant species richness and groundwater fluctuations throughout the year (Delarze et al. 2015, see also Resch et al. 2019).

 Experimental design and sampling

A large-scale restoration experiment to expand and reconnect isolated remnants of species-rich grasslands was initiated in the nature reserve Eigental in 1990. Twenty hectares of adjacent intensive grasslands were chosen for restoration. In 1995, three restoration methods of increasing intervention intensities were implemented. The goal of all three methods was to lower the availability of soil nutrients and hence, facilitate ecosystem development towards the targeted nutrient-poor grasslands. These methods were: Harvest only (hay harvest twice a year), Topsoil (removal of the nutrient-rich topsoil), and Topsoil+Propagules (topsoil removal combined with the application of hay from target vegetation). Plant biomass harvest (once a year in late summer/early autumn) commenced in Topsoil and Topsoil+Propagules five years after the soils were removed and is still ongoing today. We measured restoration success by comparing the three restoration methods with intensively managed (Initial) and semi-natural grasslands (Target) 22 years after restoration. Initial grassland sites share the same agricultural history as the restored sites: mowing and subsequent fertilizing (manure) up to five times a year, as well as different tillage regimes (Resch et al. 2019). Target sites were the sites from which hay for seeding the Topsoil+Propagules sites was collected. Soil conditions (i.e., soil types, soil texture) were comparable to those found in the restored grasslands (Resch et al. 2019). Additionally, Target sites were selected to represent a variety of semi-natural grasslands, including semi-dry to semi-wet conditions. In Target grasslands, biomass is harvested once a year in late summer or early autumn. Eleven 5 m x 5 m (25 m2) plots were randomly established in each of the five treatments (in total 55 plots; for a detailed map see Neff et al. 2020). An additional 2 m x 2 m (4 m2) subplot was randomly established at least 2 m away from each 25 m2 plot for destructive sampling. Data sampling took place between June and September 2017.

Vegetation properties

All plant species were identified within the 25 m2 plots (nomenclature: Lauber and Wagner 1996) in mid-June 2017 (in total 250 species). Vegetation structure and plant biomass were assessed diagonally on a transect of 2 m x 10 cm within the 25 m2 plot in early July 2017. We measured the maximum and mean height of the vegetation at the start, middle and end of the transect and calculated the standard deviation of these measures to describe vegetation structural heterogeneity (Schuldt et al. 2019). Thereafter, biomass was clipped on the entire transect to 1 cm height, sorted into five functional groups (graminoids, forbs, legumes, litter, and woody species), dried at 60 °C for 48 h, and weighed (Meyer et al. 2015).

 Aboveground arthropods

Aboveground arthropods were sampled at two locations in each 25 m2 plot in early July 2017 (see also Neff et al. 2020). Briefly, two cylindrical baskets (50 cm diameter, 67 cm height; woven fabric) were thrown simultaneously from outside the plot into two opposite corners. A closable mosquito mesh sleeve was mounted to the top of the baskets and an integrated metal ring at the bottom was fixed to the ground with metal stakes to assure that insects could not escape. A suction sampler (Vortis, Burkhard Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Hertfordshire, England) was then inserted into one of the baskets through the opening of the sleeve and the plot was “vacuumed" twice for 105 seconds with a 30 seconds break. The collected animals were immediately transferred into 70% ethanol. Arthropods were sorted and assigned to 23 taxonomic groups. Holometabolic larvae were lumped into one category while hemimetabolic larvae were grouped separately from adults in the respective taxonomic rank. We used mean values of individuals per plot for total abundance. Aboveground arthropod richness was defined by the number of different taxa to lowest taxonomic level (in total 23 taxa). All taxa were assigned to one of five trophic levels: 1) primary producers, 2) primary consumers, 3) secondary consumers, 4) tertiary consumers, and 5) quaternary consumers.

 Belowground fauna

Sampling of all belowground fauna took place in mid-July 2017. Earthworms were sampled in two 30 cm x 30 cm x 20 cm soil monoliths at two opposite corners of the 25 m2 plot (opposite to aboveground arthropod sampling). The excavated soil monolith was broken by hand, all earthworms collected and immediately transferred in a 4% formaldehyde solution. Thereafter, earthworm individuals were identified to species level (in total 10 taxa; Christian and Zicsi 1999) and species assigned to three functional groups (Bouché 1977).
To assess soil arthropod communities, we randomly collected one undisturbed soil core (5 cm diameter, 12 cm depth) in each 4 m2 subplot with a slide hammer corer lined with a plastic sleeve (AMS Samplers, American Falls, Idaho, USA). Soil arthropods were extracted using Berlese-Tullgren funnels (3 mm mesh), starting the day of sampling and lasting 14 days. Individuals were stored in 70% ethanol. Soil arthropods were assigned to 41 taxonomic groups and 4 feeding types. Holometabolic and hemimetabolic larvae were treated as previously described for aboveground arthropods. Belowground arthropod richness refers to the 41 taxonomic groups.

For soil nematode sampling, we randomly collected eight soil cores of 2.2 cm diameter (Giddings Machine Company, Windsor, CO, USA) within each 4 m2 subplot to a depth of 12 cm. The eight cores were combined, gently homogenized, placed in coolers, kept at 4 °C and transported to the laboratory at NIOO in Wageningen (NL) within one week after collection. Free-living nematodes were extracted from 200 g of fresh soil using Oostenbrink elutriator (Oostenbrink 1960) and prepared for morphological identification and quantification as described by Resch et al. (2019). Nematodes were identified to family level (39 taxa) according to Bongers (1988), assigned to 17 functional groups, 5 feeding types and 5 colonizer-persister (C-P) classes (Yeates et al. 1993, Bongers 1990, Resch et al. 2019).

We randomly collected two more soil cores (2.2 cm diameter x 12 cm depth) within each 4 m2 subplot to determine soil microbial communities. Again, the soil cores were combined, homogenized, placed in coolers and transported to the laboratory at WSL in Birmensdorf (Switzerland) where the metagenomic DNA was extracted from 8 g sieved soil (2 mm) using the DNeasy PowerMax Soil Kit (Quiagen, Hilden, NRW, GER) according to the manufacturer`s instructions. PCR amplification of the V3-V4 region of the prokaryotic small-subunit (16S) and the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer region (ITS2) of eukaryotes was performed with 1 ng of template DNA utilizing PCR primers and conditions as previously described (Frey et al., 2016). PCRs were run in triplicates and pooled. The pooled amplicons were sent to the Genome Quebec Innovation Centre (Montreal, QC, Canada) for barcoding using the Fluidigm Access Array technology (Fluidigm) and paired-end sequencing on the Illumina MiSeq v3 platform (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA, USA). Quality filtering, clustering into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and taxonomic assignment were performed as described by Frey et al. (2016) and Adamczyk et al. (2019). We used a customised pipeline largely based on UPARSE (Edgar 2013) implemented in USEARCH v. 9.2 (Edgar 2010). After discarding singletons of dereplicated sequences, clustering into OTUs with 97% sequence similarity was performed (Edgar 2013). Quality-filtered reads were mapped on the filtered set of centroid sequences. Taxonomic classification of prokaryotic and fungal sequences was conducted querying against most recent versions of SILVA (v.132, Quast et al. 2013) and UNITE (v.8, Nilsson et al. 2018). Only taxonomic assignments with confidence rankings equal or higher than 0.8 were accepted (assignments below 0.8 set to unclassified). Prokaryotic OTUs assigned to mitochondria or chloroplasts as well as eukaryotic OTUs assigned other than fungi were removed prior to data analysis. In addition, prokaryotic and fungal datasets were filtered to discard singletons and doubletons. Thereafter, OTU abundance matrices were rarefied to the lowest number of sequences per community, to normalize the total number of reads and achieve parity between samples (Prokaryota: 29,843 reads; Fungi: 26,690 reads). Finally, prokaryotic and fungal observed richness (number of OTUs) were estimated (Prokaryota: 14,010 OTUs; Fungi: 5,813 OTUs). For prokaryotes, we distinguished five and for fungi six functional types based on lowest taxonomic resolution (Nguyen et al. 2016, Tedersoo et al. 2014). Belowground taxon richness was defined by the total number of earthworm, arthropod, nematode, fungi, and prokaryote taxa assigned to lowest taxonomic level. Finally, all belowground taxa were assigned to the same five trophic levels as the aboveground arthropods.

 Soil chemical and physical properties, soil nitrogen mineralization

We randomly collected three 5 cm diameter x 12 cm depth soil samples in each 4 m2 subplot with a slide hammer corer (AMS Samplers, American Falls, Idaho, USA), pooled them and then made two subsamples. One was field-fresh and stored at 3 °C until analysis, the other was dried for 48 h at 60 °C and passed through a 4 mm mesh. From the dried sample, we measured soil pH potentiometrically in 0.01 M CaCl2 (soil:solution ratio=1:2; 30 minutes equilibration time). Total and organic carbon content were measured on fine-ground samples (≤ 0.5 mm) by dry combustion using a CN analyzer NC 2500 (CE Instruments, Wigan, United Kingdom). Inorganic carbon of samples with a pH > 6.5 was removed with acid vapor prior to analysis of organic carbon (Walthert et al. 2010). We calculated total soil carbon (C) storage after correcting its content for soil depth, stone content and density of fine earth (see below). Exchangeable cations were determined on another 5 g dry soil sample with 50 mL unbuffered 1 M NH4Cl solution (soil:solution ratio=1:10, end-over-end shaker for 1.5 hours) and measured by an ICP-OES (Optima 7300 DV, Perkin-Elmer, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA). Thereafter, cation exchange capacity (CEC) was calculated as the sum of exchangeable cations and protons (and expressed as mmolc per 1 kg soil) and used to describe nutrient retention capacity in our plots. Concentrations of exchangeable protons were calculated as the difference between total and Al-induced exchangeable acidity as determined by the KCl-method (Thomas 1982).

Ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3−) were extracted from a 20 g fresh subsample with 80 mL 1M KCl for 1.5 hours on an end-over-end shaker and filtered through ashless folded filter paper (DF 5895 150, ALBET LabScience, Hahnemühle FineArt GmbH, Dassel, Germany). NH4+ concentrations were determined colorimetrically by automated flow injection analysis (FIAS 300, Perkin-Elmer, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA). NO3− concentrations were measured colorimetrically according to Norman and Stucki (1981). Potential soil net nitrogen (N) mineralization was assessed during an 8-week incubation period under controlled moisture (60% of field capacity), temperature (20 °C) and light conditions (dark) in the laboratory. We weighed duplicate samples of fresh soil equivalent to 8 g dry soil (24 h at 104 °C) into 50 mL Falcon tubes. Soil samples were extracted for NH4+ and NO3− at the beginning and after eight weeks as described above. Soil net N mineralization was calculated as the difference between the inorganic nitrogen (NH4+ and NO3−) before and after the incubation (Hart et al. 1994), corrected for the total incubation time and represented per day values expressed as mg N kg-1 soil d-1.

To assess soil physical properties, we randomly collected one undisturbed soil core per 4 m2 subplot (5 cm diameter, 12 cm depth) in a steel cylinder that fit into the slide hammer (AMS Samplers, American Falls, Idaho, USA). The cylinder was capped in the field to avoid disturbance. We then measured field capacity in the laboratory. For this purpose, the cylinder and soil therein were saturated in a water bath and drained on a sand/silt-bed with a suction corresponding to 60 cm hydrostatic head. The moist soil was dried at 105 °C to constant weight. Field capacity was calculated by dividing the mass of water by the total mass of wet soil contained at 60 cm hydrostatic head and used to describe water holding capacity. Thereafter, samples were passed through a 4 mm mesh. Fine-earth and skeleton fractions were weighed separately to assess bulk soil density (fine-earth plus skeleton), density of fine earth, and proportion of skeleton. Particle density was determined with the pycnometer method (Blake and Hartge 1986), and total porosity and proportion of fine pores were calculated (Danielson and Sutherland 1986). Clay, silt, and sand contents were quantified with the sediment method (Gee and Bauder 1986).

Surface and soil temperature (12 cm depth, water-resistant digital pocket thermometer; IP65, H-B Instrument, Trappe, Pennsylvania, USA) as well as volumetric soil moisture content (12 cm depth, time domain reflectometry; Field-Scout TDR 300, Spectrum Technologies, Aurora, Illinois, USA) were measured at five random locations within the 4 m2 subplots every month from June to September. We calculated the standard deviation of each temperature and moisture measure over four months to describe seasonal variations. Slope inclination was determined at plot-level via GPS measurements (GPS 1200, Leica Geosystem, Heerbrugg, Switzerland) and categorized into slope gradient classes according to FAO standards (1990). Thickness of the topsoil horizon (equivalent to Ah or Aa horizon) was determined at one soil monolith (30 x 30 x 30 cm3) per 4 m2 subplot in cm and rounded to next integer.

 References

Adamczyk, M., F. Hagedorn, S. Wipf, J. Donhauser, P. Vittoz, C. Rixen, A. Frossard, J. Theurillat, and B. Frey. 2019. The soil microbiome of GLORIA mountain summits in the Swiss Alps. Frontiers in Microbiology 10:1080-1101.

Blake, G.R., and K. H. Hartge. 1986. Particle Density. Pages 377-382 in A. Klute, editor. Methods of soil analysis: Part 1—Physical and mineralogical methods. Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Inc., Madison.

Bongers, T. 1988. De nematoden van Nederland. Stichting Uitgeverij van de Koniklijke Nederlandse Natuurhistorische Verenigung (KNNV), Utrecht.

Bongers, T. 1990. The maturity index: an ecological measure of environmental disturbance based on nematode species composition. Oecologia 83:14-19.

Bouché, M. B. 1977. Strategies lombriciennes. Ecological Bulletins 25:122-132.

Christian, E., and A. Zicsi. 1999. Ein synoptischer Bestimmungsschlüssel der Regenwürmer Österreichs (Oligochaeta: Lumbricidae). Die Bodenkultur 50:121-131.

Danielson, R. E., and P. L. Sutherland. 1986. Porosity. Pages 443-461 in A. Klute, editor. Methods of soil analysis: Part 1—Physical and mineralogical methods. Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Inc., Madison.

Delarze, R., Y. Gonseth, S. Eggenberg, and M. Vust. 2015. Lebensräume der Schweiz: Ökologie ‐ Gefährdung ‐ Kennarten, Ott Verlag, Bern.

Edgar, R. C. 2010. Search and clustering orders of magnitude faster than BLAST. Bioinformatics 26:2460–2461.

Edgar, R. C. 2013. UPARSE: highly accurate OTU sequences from microbial amplicon reads. Nature Methods 10:996–998.

FAO. 1990. Guidelines for soil description, third ed. Land and Water Development Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome.

Frey, B., T. Rime, M. Phillips, B. Stierli, I. Hajdas, F. Widmer, and M. Hartmann. 2016. Microbial diversity in European alpine permafrost and active layers. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 92:fiw018.

Gee, G.W., and J. W. Bauder. 1986. Particle-size analysis. Pages 383-411 in A. Klute, editor. Methods of soil analysis: Part 1—Physical and mineralogical methods. Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Inc., Madison.

Hart, S. C, J. M. Stark, E. A. Davidson, and M. K. Firestone. 1994. Nitrogen mineralization, immobilization, and nitrification. Pages 985-1016 in R. W. Weaver, S. Angle, P. Bottomley, D. Bezdicek, S. Smith, A. Tabatabai, and A. Wollum, editors. Methods of soil analysis: Part 2—Microbiological and biochemical properties. Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Inc., Madison.

Lauber, K., Wagner, G., 1996. Flora Helvetica. Flora der Schweiz. Haupt Verlag, Bern.

MeteoSchweiz, 2018. Klimabulletin Jahr 2017. MeteoSchweiz, Zürich.

Meyer, S. T., C. Koch, and W. W. Weisser. 2015. Towards a standardized rapid ecosystem function assessment (REFA). Trends in Ecology and Evolution 30:390-397.

Neff, F., M. C. Resch, A. Marty, J. Rolley, M. Schütz, A. C. Risch, and M. M. Gossner. 2020. Long-term restoration success of insect herbivore communities in semi-natural grasslands – a functional approach. Ecological Applications 0:e02133

Nguyen, N.H., Z. W. Song, S. T. Bates, S. Branco, L. Tedersoo, J. Menke, J. S. Schilling, and P. G. Kennedy. 2016. FUNGuild: an open annotation tool for parsing fungal community datasets by ecological guild. Fungal Ecology 20:241–248.

Nilsson, R. H., K.-H. Larsson, A. F. S. Taylor, J. Bengtsson-Palme, T. S. Jeppesen, D. Schigel, P. G. Kennedy, K. Picard, F. O. Glöckner, L. Tedersoo, I. Saar, U. Kõljalg, and K. Abarenkov. 2018. The UNITE database for molecular identification of fungi: handling dark taxa and parallel taxonomic classifications. Nucleic Acids Research 47:259–264.

Norman, R. J., and J. W. Stucki. 1981. The Determination of Nitrate and Nitrite in Soil Extracts by Ultraviolet Spectrophotometry. Soil Science Society of America Journal 45:347-353.

Oostenbrink, M. 1960. Estimating nematode populations by some selected methods. Pages 81-101 in J. J. Sasser, and W. R. Jenkins, editors. Nematology. Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

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Resch, M. C., M. Schütz, U. Graf, R. Wagenaar, W.H. van der Putten, and A. C. Risch. 2019. Does topsoil removal in grassland restoration benefit both soil nematode and plant communities? Journal of Applied Ecology 56:1782-1793.

Schuldt, A., A. Ebeling, M. Kunz, M. Staab, C. Guimarães-Steinicke, D. Bachmann, N. Buchmann, W. Durka, A. Fichtner, F. Fornoff, W. Härdtle, L. R. Hertzog, A-N. Klein, C. Roscher, J. Schaller, von G. Oheimb, A. Weigelt, W. Weisser, C.Wirth, J. Zhang, H. Bruelheide, and N. Eisenhauer. 2019. Multiple plant diversity components drive consumer communities across ecosystems. Nature Communications 10:1460.

Tedersoo, L., M. Bahram, S. Põlme, U. Kõljalg, N. S. Yorou, R. Wijesundera, L. Villarreal Ruiz, A. M. Vasco-Palacios, P. Q. Thu, A. Suija, M. E. Smith, C. Sharp, E. Saluveer, A. Saitta, M. Rosas, T. Riit, D. Ratkowsky, K. Pritsch, K. Põldmaa, M. Piepenbring, C. Phosri, M. Peterson, K. Parts, K. Pärtel, E. Otsing, E. Nouhra, A. L. Njouonkou, R. H. Nilsson, L. N. Morgado, J. Mayor, T. W. May, L. Majuakim, D. J. Lodge, S. See Lee, K.-H. Larsson, P. Kohout, K. Hosaka, I. Hiiesalu, T. W. Henkel, H. Harend, L.-D. Guo, A. Greslebin, G. Grelet, J. Geml, G. Gates, W. Dunstan, C. Dunk, R. Frenkhan, L. Dearnaley, A. De Kesel, T. Dang, X. Chen, F. Buegger, F. Q. Brearley, G. Bonito, S. Anslan, S. Abell, and K. Abarenkov. 2014. Global diversity and geography of soil fungi. Science 346:1256688.

Thomas, G.W. 1982. Exchangeable cations. Pages 159-165 in A. L. Page, R. H. Miller, and D. R. Keeney, editors. Methods of Soil Analysis: Part 2—Chemical and microbiological properties. Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Inc., Madison.

Walthert, L., U. Graf, A. Kammer, J. Luster, D. Pezzotta, S. Zimmermann, and F. Hagedorn. 2010. Determination of organic and inorganic carbon, δ13C, and nitrogen in soils containing carbonates after acid fumigation with HCl. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Sciences 173:207-216.

Yeates, G. W., T. Bongers, R. G. M. de Goede, D. W. Freckman, and S. S. Georgieva. 1993. Feeding habits in soil nematode families and genera – an outline for soil ecologists. Journal of Nematology 25:315-331.

bacteria

display_name: bacteria

biodiversity

display_name: biodiversity

ecosystem-multifunctionality

display_name: ecosystem-multifunctionality

fungi

display_name: fungi

grassland

display_name: grassland

mineralization

display_name: mineralization

nematodes

display_name: nematodes

plants

display_name: plants

restoration

display_name: restoration

soil-biodiversity

display_name: soil-biodiversity

education

en: Education and science

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.

en: Restoring grassland multifunctionality


intratrait

maintainer: Christian Rixen

title_for_slug: intratrait

en: plant-traits elevation-range elevation-gradient cold-adapted-plants climate-change neighbour-interactions

state: active

type: dataset

media_type: CSV

en: Plant trait data along elevation gradients on mountains

format: CSV

media_type: R

format: SERVICE

en:
This data set was used to test whether species specialized to high elevations or with narrow elevational ranges show more conservative (i.e. less variable) trait responses across their elevational distribution, or in response to neighbours, than species from lower elevations or with wider elevational ranges. We did so by studying intraspecific trait variation of 66 species along 40 elevational gradients in four countries (Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, China) in both hemispheres. As an indication of potential neighbour interactions that could drive trait variation, we also analysed plant species’ height ratio, its height relative to its nearest neighbour.
The following traits and parameters were measured and are available in this data set:
As an indication of plant stature, we measured vegetative and generative height, where vegetative height was distance from soil to highest vegetative leaf and generative height was distance to the highest point on the reproductive shoot. As a measure of reproductive investment, we noted the presence of flowers on the randomly chosen individuals (see below). As a measure of individual and genet basal area, we measured individual plant and patch diameters, in two dimensions (along the largest diameter and perpendicular to it). In clonal plant species, plant diameter was equivalent to an individual rosette, whereas patch diameter referred to the whole genet and could represent the size of a tuft, tussock or cushion. For genera with more singular growth forms (e.g., some Gentiana species) plant and patch diameter were the same. The two diameter measurements were made at right angles, allowing estimates of patch and plant areas to be calculated as an ellipse (i.e., area = 0.5 a 0.5 b Π). All traits were measured on ten randomly selected individuals per site. Flower count data was considered in a binary fashion on a per individual basis (because for some species individuals only produce one flower when flowering) so that the presence or absence of flower(s) was a nominal value between 0 and 10 for each species at each site. We then collected at least three leaves (up to 30 for small and light leaves) from each of the first three individuals selected from each species for determination of leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and specific leaf area (SLA). For calculations of LDMC and SLA, fresh leaves were scanned on a flatbed scanner to determine leaf area. Leaves were then weighed on a balance to a precision of +/- 0.001g, prior to being air dried and reweighed with a balance to a precision of +/- 0.0001g. LDMC was calculated by dividing dry leaf mass by fresh leaf mass. SLA was calculated by dividing leaf area by dry leaf mass. Additionally, within an area of 10 cm diameter around the target individual, we determined the tallest neighbouring species and measured its vegetative and generative height, and estimated the percent cover of the target species, other vegetation, rock, and bare soil.
For more details see Rixen et al. 2022, Journal of Ecology.

climate-change

display_name: climate-change

cold-adapted-plants

display_name: cold-adapted-plants

elevation-gradient

display_name: elevation-gradient

elevation-range

display_name: elevation-range

neighbour-interactions

display_name: neighbour-interactions

plant-traits

display_name: plant-traits

education

fr: Education, science

de: Bildung, Wissenschaft

it: Formazione e scienza

envidat

fr: EnviDat: le portail de données environnementales

de: EnviDat: das Umwelt-Datenportal

it: EnviDat: il portale dei dati ambientali

fr: EnviDat est le portail de données du WSL; il offre un accès uniformisé et réglementé aux données de surveillance et de recherche en matière d’environnement. Ce portail est capable d’héberger et de publier des ensembles de données précieuses et uniques, qui sont partagées aux quatre coins de la planète. Ce faisant, EnviDat favorise la recherche et contribue à l’avancement des sciences environnementales.

de: EnviDat ist das Datenportal der WSL für einen einheitlichen und verwalteten Zugang zu Umweltdaten aus Monitoring- und Forschungsprojekten. Auf dem Portal können Datensätze gehostet und veröffentlicht werden. Durch die weltweite Bereitstellung einzigartiger und wertvoller Datensätze leistet EnviDat einen Beitrag zur Forschung im Bereich der Umweltwissenschaften.

it: EnviDat è il portale dati del WSL che fornisce un accesso unificato e gestito ai dati di monitoraggio ambientale e di ricerca. Il portale ha la capacità di ospitare e pubblicare serie di dati preziosi e unici che vengono condivisi in tutto il mondo. Così facendo, EnviDat promuove la ricerca e contribuisce al progresso della scienza ambientale.

political_level: other

wsl

capacity: public

type: organization

approval_status: approved

key: guid

key: uri

value: Envidat Harvester

en: intratrait


maintainer: Michael Lehning

en: snow-hydrology snow-cover alpine3d-simulations alpine-precipitation snow snow-distribution alpine3d

en: ADS datasets and simulation inputs

media_type: application/zip

en: The file contains the ADS datasets of snow depth and input data used for simulations.

format: ZIP

mimetype: application/zip

en:
Dataset (Model input, snow distribution and validation) for the precipitation scaling paper, which should be cited along with the data set citation.

This data is useful for distributed hydrological modelling or other tasks that involve the study of snow distribution and precipitation in the high Alpine.

The format of the data is for Alpine3D (models.slf.ch) model runs but other models could be used, too.

Please cite:

_Vögeli, C., Lehning, M., Wever, N., Bavay M., 2016: Scaling Precipitation Input to Spatially Distributed Hydrological Models by Measured Snow Distribution., Front. Earth Sci. 4: 108. doi: 10.3389/feart.2016.00108._

Dataset is provided as a single zip file.
The archive contains two directories, the valuable distributed snow depth maps for the landscape Davos and the simulation input.
The archive also contains the file: "ReadMeMetadataDataSetPrecipitationScaling" which explains the data structure.

alpine-precipitation

display_name: alpine-precipitation

snow

display_name: snow

snow-cover

display_name: snow-cover

snow-distribution

display_name: snow-distribution

snow-hydrology

display_name: snow-hydrology

en: Precipitation Scaling Data Set (Vögeli et al., Frontiers)


maintainer: Ionut Iosifescu Enescu

en: open-science hpc open-data open-source reproducibility jupyter-notebooks research-data-management

en: Open Science Support @ WSL (Poster)

media_type: application/pdf

format: PDF

mimetype: application/pdf

en:
This poster was originally created for the swissuniversities Open Science Action Plan: Kick-Off Forum, and showed to the audience on 17.10.2019. It illustrates how the environmental data portal EnviDat provides the tools for fostering Open Science and Reproducibility of scientific research at WSL.

Supporting open science is a highly relevant user requirement for EnviDat and for implementing FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) principles at dataset level.
EnviDat encourages WSL scientists to complement data publication with a complete description of research methods and the inclusion of the open source software, code or scripts used for processing the dataset or for obtaining the published results. By openly publishing open software (e.g. as Jupyter notebooks) alongside research data sets, researchers can contribute to mitigate reproducibility issues.

EnviDat also promotes and supports, where possible and practical, the publication of software as Jupyter notebooks. Jupyter notebooks provide a solution for improved documentation and interactive execution of open code in a wide range of programming languages (Python, R, Octave/Matlab, Java or Scala). These programming languages are widely used in environmental research at WSL and well supported by the Jupyter-compatible kernels. We have sucessfully interfaced EnviDat-hosted notebooks with the WSL High-Performance Computing (HPC) Linux Cluster through a JupyterHub/JuypterLab beta installation on the HPC cluster implemented in close collaboration with the WSL IT-Services.
For existing software that cannot be easily migrated to Jupyter Notebooks, the Open Science and Reproducibility is assisted by containerisation. We have proven that several Singularity containers can successfully run on WSL's HPC cluster.

Finally, the researchers can upload the data/results complemented by code (e.g. as Jupyter Notebooks, or Singularity containers) and any additional documentation in EnviDat. Consequently, they will receive a DOI for the entire dataset, which they can reference in their science paper in order to publish a more reproducible research.

_License_: This poster is released by WSL and the EnviDat team to the public domain under a Creative Commons 4.0 CC0 "No Rights Reserved" international license. You can reuse this poster in any way you want, for any purposes and without restrictions.

hpc

display_name: hpc

jupyter-notebooks

display_name: jupyter-notebooks

open-data

display_name: open-data

open-science

display_name: open-science

open-source

display_name: open-source

reproducibility

display_name: reproducibility

research-data-management

display_name: research-data-management

en: Open Science Support at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL. The EnviDat Concept


maintainer: EnviDat Support

en: concur urban-landscape land-change landscape-planning urban-planning

media_type: .pdf

en:
Book of abstracts from the virtual conference "From Plans to Land Change: Dynamics of Urban Regions"

Cities and urban regions are among the most dynamic land-use systems in the world, with dramatic consequences for the provision of ecosystem services and the livelihood of people. Planning is a multifaceted activity with extensive experience in the management of these urbanization processes. However, our understanding of planning’s contribution to shaping urban land use, form and structure is still incomplete, with serious consequences for the efficacy of urban planning and land change models.

This international conference aims to bring together the community of scholars working on planning evaluation and urban modelling. The participants are offered the opportunity to present their current research and to discuss how theoretical developments, data sources, comparative studies and modelling approaches might advance the field.

The conference was financially supported by the CONCUR project and sustained by Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL.

concur

display_name: concur

land-change

display_name: land-change

landscape-planning

display_name: landscape-planning

urban-landscape

display_name: urban-landscape

urban-planning

display_name: urban-planning

education

en: Education and science

en: From Plans to Land Change: Dynamics of Urban Regions. Book of Abstracts


en: hydropower ecosystem-protection integral-water-management gis decision-making

en: Indicators

media_type: text/markdown

en: The indicators capture supporting ecosystem functions.

media_type: SHP

format: SHP

en:
 A spatial dataset and tool to simultaneously assess hydropower potential and ecological potential of the Swiss river network (Version 2016)

 Introduction
The steadily growing demand for energy and the simultaneous pursuit of decarbonisation are increasing interest in the expansion of renewable energies worldwide. In Switzerland, various funding projects have been launched to promote technologies in the field of renewable energies and their application as quickly as possible. With the introduction of a funding instrument in 2009, the number of projects submitted to produce renewable energies increased rapidly. The applications for small hydropower plants (≤ 10 MW) were correspondingly numerous. However, the assessment of the environmental impact and its comparison with hydropower importance is still not standardized.
To provide a basis for decision-making, a methodology was developed to determine the overall hydropower potential of a region. A detailed assessment of each river reach, and the systematic and holistic assessment of small hydropower projects at a regional scale are combined here. The assessment of a river reach is conducted at the river space (i.e., the river and adjacent areas) and at the surrounding landscape level. The HYDROpot_integral methodology was developed as part of Carol Hemund's dissertation (2012) at the University of Bern. It allows the evaluation of river reaches holistically, regarding ecological, social, economic and cultural criteria. As a second part of the overall project, the theoretical hydropower (or hydraulic) potential was calculated for the entire river network, which complemnets the spatial assessment. In particular, it is possible to classify river reaches into those that are more suitable for hydropower production (=”use”) and those that are more suitable for protection.

 Material and method
The HYDROpot_Integral method was developed and tested on the basis of cantonal and national data (Hirschi et al. 2013). The method relies on 73 geodata sets. This holistic assessment is the key element of the entire assessment procedure. Its aim is to quantify the importance of the ecosystem functions in terms of services. The river network (GWN07) is divided into reaches of about 450m and for each reach two study units are defined. The river space (RS) records the ecosystem functions of the water body and the nearby riparian area. The length of the RS is 315 m on average in Switzerland and a maximum of 450 m, whereas the width is based on the FOEN definition (BWG 2001: 18f) and varies between 7-107 m. The surrounding landscape (SLS) is the second survey unit that records the ecosystem functions of the surrounding area over a range of 21 m to 321 m. The SLS is calculated over three times the RS width. The length of the SLS is identical to the length of the RS. The ecosystem functions are divided into three types: regulating (service A), cultural (service B) and provisioning (service C) functions. Accordingly, the assessment of the functions is divided into three parts and three values are assigned to each river reach. The more functions there are and the greater their performance, the higher these values are and the more important the corresponding functions are. Hence, these values quantify the importance of the ecosystem functions and the ecological, cultural and economic ecosystem services of each river reach. The concatenation of ecosystem services results in a value (ABC) that can occur in 125 different versions due to the chosen five-level value scale; i.e. each digit of the three-digit number sequence can be assigned a value between 1 and 5. Each of the 125 combinations, and thus each river reach, has its own characteristics determined by the assessments of the three function types. To record the suitability, the combinations are ranked according to their ecological, cultural and economic ecosystem services. These rules mean that the combination that is most suitable for hydropower production at minimum cost in terms of ecological and cultural ecosystem services and has a high economic potential is ranked first; rank 125 indicates the highest ecological and cultural ecosystem services and the lowest economic services and is therefore most suitable for protection. A river reach that is excluded from hydropower use due to legislation, a so-called priority reach, is given rank 126 from the outset and specially marked. A more detailed description of the methods can be found in Hirschi et al. 2013 [Link]. The dataset presented here presents the latest state of the HYDROpot_integral methodology applied at the national level. Only national data that is easily accessible was used in the preparation of the dataset. The cantonal data, such as renaturation and revitalization, would have to be requested by each canton individually and was excluded here. The nationwide value synthesis was made with R.
A list of data sources can be found here [link to text file]
A list of all parameters can be downloaded here [link to PDF and text files]

 Dataset description
Data is presented as a single shapefile. It contains the river network and all assessment results obtained with HYDROpot_Integral.

 Changes in the methodology compared to the original method (Hirschi et. al 2013)

 * RS_A11 Ecomorphology: recorded for the whole of Switzerland and zero values equated with NA;
individual cantons such as Zug and St. Gallen have no mapped values according to the modular
concept of the federal government, Valais and Graubünden only the main valleys, Ticino and Fribourg not
completely (BAFU 2009).
 * RS_A14 Renaturation and revitalization data: not centrally available at the time of data collection.
centrally available, therefore values in GR were equated with NA.
 * RS_A15 Dilution ratio at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for discharges: Zero values
equal to NA.
 * RS_A20 Water flow: use WASTA (2013) with hydroelectric power plants (> 300 kW) under
Federal control and dams serving hydroelectricity (Dam, as of 2013).
 * RS_C05 Synoptic hazard maps: are cantonally managed at the time of data collection,
Values in GR are marked with a 5 so that the systematics in the decision tree is not affected.
is affected.
 * Water quality (RS_A15, RS_A16, RS_A17, RS_A18, RS_A19): for the evaluation of the function type.
A Nature, it is important whether the median of the five values is less than or equal to 3 in total. This
evaluation is based on the decision tree for evaluating GR (Hirschi et al. 2013:22).
Therefore, an evaluation of the station data is made where critical and possible river segments
with poor quality (median less than 3) exist. Only two longer and one short
sections in Switzerland receive a lower median than 3 for water quality.
 * SLS_B06 Visibility: For 99 percent of the river segments (30,733 of 31,062) in the canton of
Bern (2015 reduced version), the landscape area is considered to be visible. Due to this high number
of sections, a large number of viewpoints in the layer of Swisstopo and
the computation time and computability in ArcGIS, the landscape area is classified as generally viewable
(equal to 1).
16 Method
Additional indicators were added (see Appendix B.2):
 * SLS_A21 Dissection
 * SLS_A22 Forest areas
 * SLS_B03 Hiking trails
 * SLS_B10 Residential and vacation homes
 * SLS_B11 Tourist infrastructure
 * SLS_C01 Landfill
 * SLS_C03 Infrastructure
 * SLS_C05 Industry
 * SLS_C06 Agricultural land
Not to be added, although present to some extent:
 * SLS_B06 Cultural assets of national importance: here, too, the calculability of the visibility analysis is
for the whole of Switzerland is limited
 * SLS_A15 Legally binding protection and land use planning: the individual river sections are not
clearly designated, i.e. no geodata exist
The following data are also not supplemented, as they are cantonal data:
 * SLS_A10 Cantonal nature reserves
 * SLS_A16 Forest reserves
 * SLS_A17 Cantonal inventories and contractually protected areas

decision-making

display_name: decision-making

ecosystem-protection

display_name: ecosystem-protection

gis

display_name: gis

hydropower

display_name: hydropower

integral-water-management

display_name: integral-water-management

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.


weather-station-klosters

maintainer: Maxime Hervo

title_for_slug: weather-station-klosters

en: klosters weather raclets wind precipitation temperature

en: Weather Station Klosters

en: All in one weather station measuring temperature (°C), humidity (%), wind (m s‾ ¹) and precipitation type. The time format is: number of days from January 0, 0000, UTC.

en: A weather station (Lufft WS600) measured meteorological parameters at Klosters (LON: 9.880413, LAT: 46.869019). Detailed information on the specifications can be found [here](https://www.lufft.com/products/compact-weather-sensors-293/ws600-umb-smart-weather-sensor-1832/productAction/outputAsPdf/).

klosters

display_name: klosters

precipitation

display_name: precipitation

raclets

display_name: raclets

temperature

display_name: temperature

weather

display_name: weather

wind

display_name: wind


en: large-eddy-simulations micro-rain-radar turbulence eddy-covariance-measurements mass-flux meteorological-data drifting-snow blowing-snow antarctica

en: Measurement data from Micro Rain Radar (MRR)

media_type: NetCDF

en: Remote sensing data of blowing snow from a Micro Rain Radar (MRR).

en: Measurement data from snow particle counter at MRR site

media_type: zip-compressed folder of csv

en: Near-surface observations of drifting snow from a Snow Particle Counter (SPC) installed at the location of the Micro Rain Radar.

media_type: zip-compressed folder of text files (f90)

en: Source code of the large-eddy simulations coupled with a Lagrangian stochastic model (LES-LSM), available on GitLab.

en: Simulation data for a situation with significant snow transport

en: Data from two LES-LSM simulations called Drift_1 and Drift_2, which reproduce the conditions observed at the S17 site on 11th January 2019, 00:40 to 00:50 UTC.

en: Readme

media_type: TXT

en: Meta data

format: TXT

en: Measurement data from micro-meteorological station

media_type: zip-compressed folder of ASCII files

en: Automatic in-situ measurements of micro-meteorology and snow transport

en: Simulation data for a situation with negligible snow transport

en: Results from two LES-LSM simulations called NoDrift_1 and NoDrift_2, which reproduce the conditions observed at the S17 site on 12th January 2019, 05:40 to 05:50 UTC.

en:
This dataset contains measurement and simulation data. The measurements characterize the standard meteorology, turbulence, and snow transport at the S17 site near Syowa Station in East Antarctica during an expedition in austral summer 2018/2019. Large-eddy simulations with sublimating particles provide additional insight into the latent and sensible heat exchange between snow and air in two example situations observed at the S17 site.

A part of the measurement data was recorded by an automatic measurement station from 10th January 2019 to 26th January 2019. This measurement station was equipped with standard meteorological sensors, a three-dimensional ultrasonic anemometer, an open-path infrared gas analyzer, a snow particle counter, an infrared radiometer for measurements of the surface temperature, and a sonic ranging sensor measuring changes in snow surface elevation.

At a horizontal distance of approximately 500 m, a Micro Rain Radar (MRR) was installed in a tilted configuration with an elevation angle of 7° for remote sensing of blowing snow between 25th December 2018 and 24th January 2019. In addition, near-surface in-situ measurements of snow transport were performed at the location of the MRR by deploying a snow particle counter from 27th December 2018 to 24th January 2019.

The simulations cover a 18 x 18 x 6 m³ domain and reproduce the steady-state conditions during a 10-min interval with significant snow transport and another 10-min interval with negligible snow transport. We provide the model source code and the post-processed simulation data, i.e., horizontally averaged quantities as a function of height and time.

antarctica

display_name: antarctica

blowing-snow

display_name: blowing-snow

drifting-snow

display_name: drifting-snow

eddy-covariance-measurements

display_name: eddy-covariance-measurements

large-eddy-simulations

display_name: large-eddy-simulations

mass-flux

display_name: mass-flux

meteorological-data

display_name: meteorological-data

micro-rain-radar

display_name: micro-rain-radar

turbulence

display_name: turbulence

en: Meteorology and snow transport at S17 near Syowa, Antarctica, in austral summer 2018/2019


en: antarctica meteorological-data mass-flux drifting-snow snowmicropen terrestrial-laser-scanning

en: Dataset

media_type: Link

en: Links to the dataset

en: README

media_type: text/plain

en: Describes the dataset in detail

mimetype: text/plain

en:
This dataset contains the data acquired during the expedition to Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station in December 2016 and January 2017. The dataset consits of meterorological data, drifting snow mass flux data, SnowMicroPen data and Terrestrial Laser Scanning data.

Please refer to the README for more information about the data.

This dataset is the basis of the following publication:

Sommer, C. G., Wever, N., Fierz, C., and Lehning, M.: Wind-packing of snow in Antarctica, The Cryosphere Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2018-36, in review, 2018.

snowmicropen

display_name: snowmicropen

terrestrial-laser-scanning

display_name: terrestrial-laser-scanning

education

en: Education and science

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.

en: Expedition to Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station, 2016/2017


en: ecology environmental---history switzerland historical-carthography environmental--policy wetlands

en: Wetlands 1850 - 2010 (shapefiles)

en:
 History of wetlands - GIS-Layers
 Location of wetlands based on signatures in topographic maps
* Basis 1850: original measuring table sheets Dufour created between the years 1834 and 1863.
* Basis 1900/ Basis 1950: The Siegfried maps were updated and published at regular intervals between 1870 and 1949. This long period of time made it possible to reconstruct wetlands for two periods based on the Siegfried Maps: the first edition (hereinafter referred to as "1900") and the last edition ("1950").
* Basis 2010: Map sheets from the National Map from 2006 to 2011 were used for the most recent time period of the reconstruction.
 Location of wetlands due to reconstructions
The reconstruction **must not** be interpreted in the sense of a surface-accurate separation, but shows without claim to location accuracy the approximate extent of the areas that would have corresponded to the mapping criteria for wetlands used in today's topographic maps around 1850, 1900 and 1950. The basics can be found in Stuber & Bürgi 2019, chapter 5.4.

en:
Naturally, large parts of the Swiss Plateau are characterised by wetlands
and meandering rivers. That this is no longer the case today is the result
of centuries of efforts to obtain dry land. But how did this process take
place? What were the relevant actors and what were their motivations? And
what can be said about the ecological consequences of this development?

In a research project on the history of wetlands in Switzerland since 1700,
we conducted (a) a historical analysis of the development of land use in
wetlands and the actors involved, (b) a historical-cartographic
reconstruction of wetland extent since 1850 and (c) an evaluation of
ecological effects of changes in wetlands on various organisms groups.

The series of GIS layers on wetland history stem from the second part of
the project. The area reconstruction is based on digitized and homogenized
signatures from national map series, as they have been available since
about 1850. Details about the digitalization process and the homogenization
procedures applied ("Rekonstruktionen") are included in Stuber & Bürgi
2019.

Book Citation:
 > Stuber M, Bürgi M (2019) Vom «eroberten Land» zum Renaturierungsprojekt. Geschichte der Feuchtgebiete in der Schweiz seit 1700. "Bristol Schriftenreihe", Band 59. Haupt Verlag, Bern, Stuttgart, Wien. 262 Seiten.

ecology

display_name: ecology

environmental---history

display_name: environmental---history

environmental--policy

display_name: environmental--policy

historical-carthography

display_name: historical-carthography

switzerland

display_name: switzerland

wetlands

display_name: wetlands

en: History of wetlands in Switzerland since 1850


disdrometer-data-gotschnagrat

title_for_slug: disdrometer-data-gotschnagrat

en: disdrometer raclets precipitation hydrometeors visibility

en: Disdrometer Data Gotschnagrat

en: The zip folder contains one netCDF file per day for Gotschnagrat from February 11 to March 27 2019 with a temporal resolution of 30 seconds (time in UTC). The naming convention for the files is Gotschna_YYYYMMDD.nc and the files include the following: characteristics of hydrometeors (e.g. diameter, fall velocity, amount per diameter class,...), precipitation rate, radar reflectivity, visibility range, weather codes and instrument performance.

en: A laser optical disdrometer (Parsivel² , OTT Hydromet) was deployed at Gotschnagrat (LON: 9.849, LAT: 46.859) to measure hydrometeors by extinction when passing a laser beam. The instrument can classify eight different kinds of precipitation, including rain, hail, snow, drizzle, and hybrid forms. The dataset contains information on precipitation amount and type for the period of February 11 to March 27 2019 at Gotschnagrat.

disdrometer

display_name: disdrometer

hydrometeors

display_name: hydrometeors

precipitation

display_name: precipitation

raclets

display_name: raclets

visibility

display_name: visibility


en: gcos wagital meteodat-gmbh snow-water-equivalent snow

en:
Total water reserves of the snow cover [mio m3] for Wägital catchment, Switzerland, for reference date April 1. Data is separated in 2 elevation zones 900m-1500m asl and 1500m-2300m asl. Time period 1943-2022, status 2022-04-20.

Funded currently or in the past by:

- Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss in the context of GCOS Switzerland
- Meteodat GmbH
- Institute of Geography, University of Zurich
- WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF
- Institute of Geography, ETH Zurich (IAC ETH Zurich)
- AG Kraftwerk Wägital (AXPO and EWZ)

See also https://www.meteodat.ch/waegital.html

gcos

display_name: gcos

meteodat-gmbh

display_name: meteodat-gmbh

snow

display_name: snow

snow-water-equivalent

display_name: snow-water-equivalent

wagital

display_name: wagital

en: Snow water equivalent for reference date April 1 for Wägital catchment, starting 1943


maintainer: Christoph Marty

en: hydrology climate-change-impacts water-cycle snow snowfall

en: Synthesis report chapter

en: DORA Persistent URL

en:
This report was prepared as one of the synthesis report chapters of the Hydro-CH2018 project of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). An important feature of snow cover is the fact that its volume and duration is subject to large year-to-year fluctuations. As frozen precipitation, snow cover is nothing other than a natural water reservoir that delays precipitation to runoff and is thus of outstanding importance for the seasonal water balance in Switzerland. Over a whole year, approximately 40% (22 km3) of the annual runoff currently comes from snow melting and only 1% from glacier melting. Typically, the snow cover in the Alpine region builds up over the autumn and winter months, reaches its maximum between February and May, depending on the altitude, and dominates the runoff processes during melting in the following spring and summer months.
Due to the great dependence on minus temperatures and precipitation, the snow cover reacts sensitively to temperatures above 0° Celsius and more or less precipitation. Due to climate change and the associated warming, the proportion of precipitation that falls as snow decreases measurably. In addition to this reduction in snowfall, the warmer temperatures also cause the snow cover to melt more quickly. The decline in snowfall has so far mainly affected lower altitudes, where winter temperatures often reach positive levels.
As climate change progresses, this trend is likely to continue and above all affect higher zones. Even at higher altitudes, the snow cover will then start later, melt away earlier and is increasingly no longer permanently present. This development will also have an effect on the water bodies. Today nival regimes, i.e. regimes shaped by snow, are shifting towards pluvial regimes, i.e. regimes dominated by rain. Overall, winter runoff increases, summer runoff decreases. By the end of the century, the proportion of runoff from snowmelt will decrease throughout Switzerland, albeit to a lesser extent than the proportion from glacier melt.

climate-change-impacts

display_name: climate-change-impacts

hydrology

display_name: hydrology

snowfall

display_name: snowfall

water-cycle

display_name: water-cycle

en: Snow and the water cycle in a changing climate


maintainer: Lisa Hülsmann

en: forest-reserves tree-mortality tree-growth inventory-data empirical-mortality-models

en: Calibration data

media_type: text/csv

en:
A set of three consecutive inventories was used to generate records for the calibration of mortality models based on trees that were alive in the first and second inventory and either dead or alive in the third inventory.

 Meta data
Reserve: Name of the forest reserve

Plot: Permanent plot number

 Tree data
Species: Latin species name (or species group, cf. _Quercus_ spp.)

y: Status of the tree with 0 = alive and 1 = dead

dt: Length of the mortality period (years)

DBH: Diameter at breast height (mm) of the second inventory

relBAI: Annual relative basal area increment (-) calculated based on the first and the second DBH measurement as the compound annual growth rate of the trees basal area

 Stand data
_All stand variables were calculated for the second inventory._

mDBH: Mean diameter at breast height (mm)

iqrDBH: Interquartile range of diameter at breast height (mm)

BA: Basal area per hectare (m2 ha-1)

N: Number of trees per hectare (ha-1)

 Climate data
_Both climate variables were calculated for the period between the second and the third inventory._

P: Mean annual precipitation sum (mm)

mT: Mean annual air temperature (°C)

mimetype: text/csv

en:
The dataset comprises > 90 000 records from inventories in 54 strict forest reserves in [Switzerland](https://www.wsl.ch/de/wald/biodiversitaet-naturschutz-urwald/naturwaldreservate.html) and [Lower Saxony / Germany](http://naturwaelder.de/) along a considerable environmental gradient. It was used to develop parsimonious, species-specific mortality models for 18 European tree species based on tree size and growth as well as additional covariates on stand structure and climate.

 Inventory data
Measurements had been conducted repeatedly on up to 14 permanent plots per reserve for up to 60 years with re-measurement intervals of 4 - 27 years. The permanent plots vary in size between 0.03 and 3.47 ha. The inventories provide diameter measurements at breast height (DBH) and information on the species and status (alive or dead) of trees with DBH ≥ 4 cm for Switzerland and ≥ 7 cm for Germany.

 Data selection
We excluded three permanent plots where at least 80 % of the trees died during an interval of 10 years, and mortality could be clearly assigned to a disturbance agent. Mortality in the remaining stands was rather low, with a mean annual mortality rate of 1.5 % and strong variation between plots from 0 to 6.5 % (assessed for trees of all species with DBH ≥ 7 cm).
We only used data from permanent plots with at least 20 trees per species to obtain reliable plot-level mortality rates even for species with low mortality rates (about 5 % during 10 years), and selected tree species occurring on at least 10 plots to cover sufficient ecological gradients. This led to a dataset of 197 permanent plots and 18 tree or shrub species: _Abies alba_ Mill., _Acer campestre_ L., _Acer pseudoplatanus_ L., _Alnus incana_ Moench., _Betula pendula_ Roth, _Carpinus betulus_ L., _Cornus mas_ L., _Corylus avellana_ L., _Fagus sylvatica_ L., _Fraxinus excelsior_ L., _Picea abies_ (L.) Karst, _Pinus mugo_ Turra, _Pinus sylvestris_ L., _Quercus pubescens_ Willd., _Quercus_ spp. (_Q. petraea_ Liebl. and _Q. robur_ L.; not properly differentiated in the Swiss inventories), _Sorbus aria_ Crantz, _Tilia cordata_ Mill. and _Ulmus glabra_ Huds..

 Predictors of tree mortality
We considered tree size and growth as key indicators for mortality risk. Radial stem growth between the first and second inventory and DBH at the second inventory were used to predict tree status (alive or dead) at the third inventory. To this end, the annual relative basal area increment (relBAI) was calculated as the compound annual growth rate of the trees basal area. Additional covariates on stand structure and climate comprise mean annual precipitation sum (P), mean annual air temperature (mT), the mean and the interquartile range of DBH (mDBH, iqrDBH), basal area (BA) and the number of trees (N) per hectare.

 Further information
For further information, refer to Hülsmann _et al_. (in press) How to kill a tree – Empirical mortality models for eighteen species and their performance in a dynamic forest model. _Ecological Applications_.

empirical-mortality-models

display_name: empirical-mortality-models

forest-reserves

display_name: forest-reserves

inventory-data

display_name: inventory-data

tree-growth

display_name: tree-growth

tree-mortality

display_name: tree-mortality

education

en: Education and science

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.

en: Calibration data for empirical mortality models of 18 European tree species


maintainer: Henning Löwe

en: granular-snow grain-shape angle-of-repose fast-sintering discrete-element-modelling

en: Angle of repose and 3D CT images

en:
5 Snow types were examined and glass beads as a cohesion-less reference, named as follows:

RG: rounded grains (sieved with 0.7 - 1.4 mm)

FC: faceted grains (1.4 - 2 mm)

FCS: small faceted grains (0.7 - 1.4 mm)

IB: ice beads (4 mm)

IBS: small ice beads (2 - 2.2 mm)

GB: glass beads(2 mm)

en:
Angle of repose experiments were performed with different snow types at temperatures between -2 and -40°C. They were used to examine granular snow dynamics on the grain-scale with focus on the role of grain shape and cohesion. The angle of repose was observed by sieving snow onto a round, freestanding base until a stationary heap was formed.

This dataset consists of 1) the images of the experimental heaps that were taken to determine the angle of repose, 2) one binary 3D micro computed tomography image of each snow type. The CT images were taken with the SLF micro-CT40 to characterize snow properties and grain shape.

The experiments with natural snow types (rounded and faceted grains) and spherical model snow allowed for an examination of the differences in granular properties between natural grain shapes and spherical particles in view of Discrete Element Modelling. With the chosen temperatures, the effect of sintering could be observed that increases the angle of repose with increasing temperature.

angle-of-repose

display_name: angle-of-repose

discrete-element-modelling

display_name: discrete-element-modelling

fast-sintering

display_name: fast-sintering

grain-shape

display_name: grain-shape

granular-snow

display_name: granular-snow

en: Angle of repose experiments with natural and spherical snow


maintainer: Esther R. Frei

en: swiss-alps g-tree forest treeline climate-change

en: climate data G-TREE experiment, Davos, Switzerland

en: GTREE Website

en:
G-TREE is a global research network composed of 40 arctic and alpine researchers from around the world. This summer, our field experiment will be established at numerous sites across Canada, France, Norway, Spain, the United States, and Venezuela. Other sites are being developed in Russia, Scotland, and Sweden.

The Stillberg research area is located in the Eastern Swiss Alps near Davos, Switzerland. The site has been used for several long-term monitoring as well as experimental studies for the last four decades. Our G-TREE experiment consists of a lowest site located in a subalpine Larch-Spruce forest (Larici-Picetum) dominated by Larix decidua and Picea abies (1930 m a.s.l.), a transition zone site dominated by alpine shrubs (2100 m a.s.l.), and an uppermost site in an alpine meadow with some dwarf shrubs (2390 m a.s.l.).

climate-change

display_name: climate-change

forest

display_name: forest

g-tree

display_name: g-tree

swiss-alps

display_name: swiss-alps

treeline

display_name: treeline

en: G-TREE: Global Treeline Range Expansion Experiment Davos, Switzerland