Advancing the long view of ecological change in tundra systems

Post, Eric; Høye, Toke T.

doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0477

Cited by 23 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…There is only fragmented and scarce data (in time and space) on sea ice extent prior to the generation of spatially explicit sea ice extent information by satellite observations in the late 1970s [ Post and Høye , ]. Since Iceland's settlement in circa 870 A.D., records were kept of sea ice incidence by Icelandic fisheries [ Polyak et al ., ], enabling the development of a sea ice index for the period A.D. 1600–1850 [ Ogilvie and Jónsdóttir , ].…”

Section: Sea Ice Observation and Reconstructionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has contributed to the decrease in ice age, with a drop from 4+ years old ice constituting 33% of the total ice extent in the mid‐1980s to 3.1% in 2016 [ Tschudi et al ., ]. The continuing decline in sea ice cover is expected to have a diverse range of consequences including a warmer, wetter Arctic, impacts on terrestrial and marine productivity, changes to global atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns, terrestrial fauna and flora population fragmentation and habitat reduction, increased marine species interaction and connectivity, and northward expansion of lower latitude species [ Overland and Wang , ; Screen and Simmonds , ; Francis and Vavrus , ; Post and Høye , ; Overland et al ., ; Bintanja and Andry , ; Vavrus et al ., ]. The knowledge of the dynamics behind such changes is constantly evolving, and the importance of factors such as the Arctic Oscillation—AO; defined as the principal component of Northern Hemisphere sea level pressure and regarded as the most influential mode of atmospheric circulation and climate in the Arctic [ Thompson and Wallace , ; Comiso and Hall , ]—and associated changes in ocean current and sea ice dynamics remains under active research [e.g., Rigor et al ., ; Comiso and Hall , ; Barnes and Screen , ; Ding et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Out of the woods: Driftwood insights into Holocene pan‐Arctic sea ice dynamics

Hole

Macias‐Fauria

2017

JGR Oceans

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The collation of 913 driftwood samples from across the western Arctic, with spatiotemporal distribution and available provenance data, enabled the production of a high‐resolution proxy‐based reconstruction of Holocene Arctic Ocean surface current and sea ice dynamics. Regionally bounded, driftwood‐based sea ice reconstructions studies suggest spatiotemporally complex past Arctic sea ice extent and movement; however, a large‐scale compilation of Holocene Arctic driftwood has not previously been developed. Sparse driftwood in the early Holocene (≥8.2 cal ka B.P.) deglacial period was followed by increased driftwood deposition in the warmer mid‐Holocene (8.2–4.2 cal ka B.P.); characterized by an enhanced Transpolar Drift (TPD) ∼7 cal ka B.P., leading to sea ice loss through the Fram Strait. Driftwood incursion peaks show spatial E‐W progression from the Eurasian Archipelagos to Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, suggesting a progressive shift in the orientation of the TPD on centennial‐millennial time scales and intermediate phases in the Arctic Oscillation. Late Holocene cooling (≤4.2 cal ka B.P.) is indicated by increased influx of probably North American Picea via a strengthened Beaufort Gyre (BG) which enhanced sea ice recirculation, starting in the western Arctic and progressing eastward. In recent millennia (<2 cal ka B.P.), a more variable driftwood record alternates between BG and TPD dominance on centennial time scales. To further constrain a spatiotemporal reconstruction of variations in Holocene ocean current and sea ice dynamics, a more definitive determination of driftwood provenance is recommended to build upon the current framework, such as through radiogenic isotope tracing and aDNA analysis.

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Section: Sea Ice Observation and Reconstructionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of the woods: Driftwood insights into Holocene pan‐Arctic sea ice dynamics

Hole

Macias‐Fauria

2017

JGR Oceans

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“…The latter issue is particularly challenging in arctic datasets because there is some evidence that communities in extreme environments tend to be less dynamic and to exhibit very slow succession rates [ 36 , 37 ]. The use of long-term datasets, which are rare for arctic ecosystems [ 38 ], could aid in resolving these issues [ 39 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential arthropod responses to warming are altering the structure of Arctic communities

2018

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The Arctic is experiencing some of the fastest rates of warming on the planet. Although many studies have documented responses to such warming by individual species, the idiosyncratic nature of these findings has prevented us from extrapolating them to community-level predictions. Here, we leverage the availability of a long-term dataset from Zackenberg, Greenland (593 700 specimens collected between 1996 and 2014), to investigate how climate parameters influence the abundance of different arthropod groups and overall community composition. We find that variation in mean seasonal temperatures, winter duration and winter freeze–thaw events is correlated with taxon-specific and habitat-dependent changes in arthropod abundances. In addition, we find that arthropod communities have exhibited compositional changes consistent with the expected effects of recent shifts towards warmer active seasons and fewer freeze–thaw events in NE Greenland. Changes in community composition are up to five times more extreme in drier than wet habitats, with herbivores and parasitoids generally increasing in abundance, while the opposite is true for surface detritivores. These results suggest that species interactions and food web dynamics are changing in the Arctic, with potential implications for key ecosystem processes such as decomposition, nutrient cycling and primary productivity.

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“…While continuous, long‐term records of phenology are relatively common in temperate ecosystems, very few such records exist for Arctic regions (Post & Høye, ). Short‐term monitoring of phenological responses to experimental warming has demonstrated that Arctic plants flower earlier when warmed (Arft et al ., ; Hollister & Webber, ; Hollister et al ., ), but these short‐term responses have been shown to overestimate responses to long‐term experimental warming and underestimate responses to ambient warming (Chapin et al ., ; Hollister et al ., ; Wolkovich et al ., ; Kremers et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting effects of warming and increased snowfall on Arctic tundra plant phenology over the past two decades

Bjorkman

Elmendorf

Beamish

et al. 2015

Global Change Biology

163

181

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Recent changes in climate have led to significant shifts in phenology, with many studies demonstrating advanced phenology in response to warming temperatures. The rate of temperature change is especially high in the Arctic, but this is also where we have relatively little data on phenological changes and the processes driving these changes. In order to understand how Arctic plant species are likely to respond to future changes in climate, we monitored flowering phenology in response to both experimental and ambient warming for four widespread species in two habitat types over 21 years. We additionally used long-term environmental records to disentangle the effects of temperature increase and changes in snowmelt date on phenological patterns. While flowering occurred earlier in response to experimental warming, plants in unmanipulated plots showed no change or a delay in flowering over the 21-year period, despite more than 1 °C of ambient warming during that time. This counterintuitive result was likely due to significantly delayed snowmelt over the study period (0.05-0.2 days/yr) due to increased winter snowfall. The timing of snowmelt was a strong driver of flowering phenology for all species - especially for early-flowering species - while spring temperature was significantly related to flowering time only for later-flowering species. Despite significantly delayed flowering phenology, the timing of seed maturation showed no significant change over time, suggesting that warmer temperatures may promote more rapid seed development. The results of this study highlight the importance of understanding the specific environmental cues that drive species' phenological responses as well as the complex interactions between temperature and precipitation when forecasting phenology over the coming decades. As demonstrated here, the effects of altered snowmelt patterns can counter the effects of warmer temperatures, even to the point of generating phenological responses opposite to those predicted by warming alone.

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Advancing the long view of ecological change in tundra systems

Cited by 23 publications

References 61 publications

Out of the woods: Driftwood insights into Holocene pan‐Arctic sea ice dynamics

Out of the woods: Driftwood insights into Holocene pan‐Arctic sea ice dynamics

Differential arthropod responses to warming are altering the structure of Arctic communities

Contrasting effects of warming and increased snowfall on Arctic tundra plant phenology over the past two decades

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