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Boreal flat bugs include a high proportion of species that are considered negatively affected by forestry. Knowledge on the biology and habitat demands of individual species is generally limited. We examined the influence on flat bugs of stand-age and clear-cutting, comparing five classes of spruce stands. The five classes were: clear-cut, unthinned, and thinned (all three products of current clear-cutting forestry), mature managed and old-growth stands (these two had never been clear-cut). We also compared unburned and recently burned mature pine forest. Fire, but not stand age, had a pronounced effect on species richness and total abundance. Aradus depressus showed a significant association with older forest stands. Aradus betulae occurred only in clear-cuts and burned forest indicating that this species is favored by disturbance in general. Aradus lugubris, Aradus crenaticollis and Aradus brevicollis were found only in the burned forest. Aradus brevicollis has not previously been shown to be associated with fire. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.

Root phenology is important in controlling carbon and nutrient fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, yet, remains largely unexplored, especially in the Arctic. We compared below- and aboveground phenology and ending of the growing season in two contrasting vegetation types of subarctic tundra: heath and meadow, and their response to experimental warming in autumn. 

Root phenology was measured in-situ with minirhizotrons and compared with aboveground phenology assessed with repeat digital photography. 

The end of the growing season, both below- and aboveground, was similar in meadow and heath and the belowground growing season ended later than aboveground in the two vegetation types. Root growth was higher and less equally distributed over time in meadow compared to heath. The warming treatment increased air and soil temperature by 0.5 A degrees C and slightly increased aboveground greenness, but did not affect root growth or prolong the below- and aboveground growing season in either of the vegetation types. 

These results imply that vegetation types differ in root dynamics and suggest that other factors than temperature control autumnal root growth in these ecosystems. Further investigations of root phenology will help to identify those drivers, in which including responses of functionally contrasting vegetation types will help to estimate how climate change affects belowground processes and their roles in ecosystem function.

Water relations in plant communities are influenced both by contrasting functional groups (grasses and shrubs) and by climate change via complex effects on interception, uptake, and transpiration. We modeled the effects of functional group replacement and biomass increase, both of which can be outcomes of invasion and vegetation management, and climate change on ecological drought (soil water potential below which photosynthesis stops) in 340 semiarid grassland sites over 30year periods. Relative to control vegetation (climate and site-determined mixes of functional groups), the frequency and duration of drought were increased by shrubs and decreased by annual grasses. The rankings of shrubs, control vegetation, and annual grasses in terms of drought effects were generally consistent in current and future climates, suggesting that current differences among functional groups on drought effects predict future differences. Climate change accompanied by experimentally increased biomass (i.e., the effects of invasions that increase community biomass or management that increases productivity through fertilization or respite from grazing) increased drought frequency and duration and advanced drought onset. Our results suggest that the replacement of perennial temperate semiarid grasslands by shrubs, or increased biomass, can increase ecological drought in both current and future climates.