Pleistocene Park

Pleistocene Park (Pleystotsenovyy park) is a nature reserve on the Kolyma River south of Chersky in the Sakha Republic, Russia, in northeastern Siberia, where an attempt is being made to re-create the northern subarctic steppe grassland ecosystem that flourished in the area during the last glacial period. The project is being led by Russian scientists Sergey Zimov and Nikita Zimov, testing the hypothesis that repopulating with large herbivores (and predators) can restore rich grasslands ecosystems, as expected if overhunting, and not climate change, was primarily responsible for the extinction of wildlife and the disappearance of the grasslands at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. The aim of the project is to research the climatic effects of the expected changes in the ecosystem. Here the hypothesis is that the change from tundra to grassland will result in a raised ratio of energy emission to energy absorption of the area, leading to less thawing of permafrost and thereby less emission of greenhouse gases. It is also thought that removal of snow by large herbivores will further reduce the permafrost's insulation. To study this, large herbivores have been released, and their effect on the local fauna is being monitored. Preliminary results point at the ecologically low-grade tundra biome being converted into a productive grassland biome and at the energy emission of the area being raised. The primary aim of Pleistocene Park is to recreate the mammoth steppe (ancient taiga/tundra grasslands that were widespread in the region during the last ice age). The key concept is that animals, rather than climate, maintained that ecosystem. Reintroducing large herbivores to Siberia would then initiate a positive feedback loop promoting the reestablishment of grassland ecosystems. This argument is the basis for rewilding Pleistocene Park's landscape with megafauna that were previously abundant in the area, as evidenced by the fossil record. The grassland-steppe ecosystem that dominated Siberia during the Pleistocene disappeared 10,000 years ago and was replaced by a mossy and forested tundra and taiga ecosystem.

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Kolyma (river)

The Kolyma (Колыма, kəlɨˈma; Халыма) is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Sakha Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and Magadan Oblast of Russia. The Kolyma is frozen to depths of several metres for about 250 days each year, becoming free of ice only in early June, until October. The Kolyma begins at the confluence of the Kulu and the Ayan-Yuryakh (Kolyma a natural continuation of Ayan-Yuryakh).

Quaternary extinction event

The latter half of the Late Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene (~50,000-10,000 years Before Present) saw extinctions of numerous predominantly megafaunal species, which resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity across the globe. The extinctions during the Late Pleistocene are differentiated from previous extinctions by the widespread absence of ecological succession to replace these extinct megafaunal species, and the regime shift of previously established faunal relationships and habitats as a consequence.

Panthera spelaea

Panthera spelaea, also known as the Eurasian cave lion, European cave lion or steppe lion, is an extinct Panthera species that most likely evolved in Europe after the third Cromerian interglacial stage, less than 600,000 years ago. Phylogenetic analysis of fossil bone samples revealed that it was highly distinct and genetically isolated from the modern lion (Panthera leo) occurring in Africa and Asia. Analysis of morphological differences and mitochondrial data support the taxonomic recognition of Panthera spelaea as a distinct species that genetically diverged from the lion about .

Unexpectedly minor nitrous oxide emissions from fluvial networks draining permafrost catchments of the East Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Tom Ian Battin, Sibo Zhang

Streams and rivers emit substantial amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O) and are therefore an essential component of global nitrogen (N) cycle. Permafrost soils store a large reservoir of dormant N that, upon thawing, can enter fluvial networks and partly degrad ...

2022

Assessing the impact of ground ice degradation on high mountain lake environments (Lago Nero catchment, Swiss Alps)

Nicola Deluigi, Monica Bulgheroni

In high mountain hydrosystems, glacial meltwater composition is potentially affected by the degradation of alpine permafrost terrains and ground ice bodies releasing atmospheric pollutants that have been stored in permafrost terrains for several decades. I ...

SPRINGER BASEL AG2020

A comparison between modeled and measured permafrost temperatures at Ritigraben borehole, Switzerland

Michael Lehning

The area-wide distribution of permafrost is sparsely known in mountainous terrain (e.g. Alps). Permafrost monitoring can only be based on point or small scale measurements such as boreholes, active rock glaciers, BTS measurements or geophysical measurement ...

2013

Covers the Leighton-Rao algorithm for finding the sparsest cut in a graph, focusing on its steps and theoretical foundations.