In alpine ecosystems, winter monitoring of soil functioning is compromised by limited access and harsh conditions. Yet this period is crucial, as the insulating snowpack keeps soils unfrozen, allowing for belowground activity. Snow removal for sampling would subject the soil to unprecedented freezing, besides an impossible recognition of plant species beneath the snow and an impact on the uppermost soil layer due to intense trampling.

We therefore developed a soil sampling method where we strategically installed newly designed cores into the soil before snowfall, which we attached to long plastic tubes. By pulling these tubes through snowpack, we recovered intact, unfrozen soil samples ready for further analyses and foresee promising perspectives for the seasonal monitoring of alpine soils.

If you’d like to have a clearer idea of how it works, have a look at the videos inhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929139326006906?via%3Dihub#ec0010