Nutrient and Metal Amounts in Permafrost and Active Layer Soils at the Stordalen Mire, Abisko Sweden

We assessed how nutrients, solutes, and metals vary in permafrost soil and in the active layers across four plant communities undergoing permafrost thaw at the Stordalen Mire in Abisko Sweden. We hypothesized that nutrient availability shifts from low nitrogen and phosphorus to high nitrogen and phosphorus amounts across plant communities with increasing thaw depth. Although nutrient availability did not shift from low to high nitrogen and phosphorus across plant communities with increasing thaw depth as hypothesized, nutrient availability immediately increased in the thaw front (rich Sphagnum lawn), and returned to low nitrogen and phosphorus availability in the tall graminoid fen, where permafrost was no longer intact. Despite high amounts of acid digestible phosphorus, available P (Presin) amount was low in the permafrost and tall graminoid fen soils, likely due to P sorption with iron. While permafrost soils had high amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and metals, dissolved organic carbon amounts were low.