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PICTURE: David Hik, Professor of Biology at Simon Fraser University, shown in Printers Pass, Yukon. Hik was among more than 100 researchers to contribute to a major study on climate change …
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Credit: Courtesy David Hik
A study conducted by more than 100 global researchers links the effects of climate change with new and higher plant species in arctic and alpine tundra, where grasses and shrubs are generally grown. Their results were published in Nature.
Dr. David Hik, a professor of biology at Simon Fraser University, whose research focuses on the terrestrial ecology of the northern mountains, was part of the massive team. Isla Myers-Smith, a former doctoral student in her lab, currently at the University of Edinburgh, is one of the three main authors of the study.
The study includes contributions from collaborators working on 117 tundra sites in the northern hemisphere. The researchers sought to better understand the extent of the relationship between climate and plant characteristics in cold ecosystems and the consequences of global warming on functional changes affecting community structure. Range, in southwestern Yukon.
Researchers have identified global warming as the underlying cause of increasing plant size in the arctic and alpine regions of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and Siberia, the Alps and other mountains.
The researchers note that during the three decades covered by the study, temperatures in the Arctic increased by one degree Celsius in summer and 1.5 degrees in winter, which is one of the fastest warming rates on the planet. Similar warming has been observed in many mountain ranges around the world.
"This article is significant because we have been able to quantify the relationships between temperature, soil moisture, and key biome-scale plant characteristics, which form the foundation of biological form and function, using a set data from more than 56,000 plant observations, decades of vegetation study data from these sites, "says Hik.
Among the main conclusions:
- Relationships between temperature and characters were generally strong, but soil moisture had a noticeable influence on the strength and direction of these relationships, highlighting the potentially important influence of changes in the availability of water. Water on future character changes in tundra communities.
- The height of the plant community has increased with the warming of all sites over the last three decades. other traits are far behind the expected rates of change;
- In tundra communities, the functions closely related to plant height will experience the fastest change.
According to the study, according to the study, recent (observed) and future (predicted) changes in plant characteristics, particularly their height, are likely to have important impacts and feedback on tundra ecosystem functions. , and the potential for soil carbon loss is particularly high.
A major incentive to quantify spatio-temporal temperature relationships is to provide an empirical basis for predicting the potential consequences of future warming. Terrestrial system models are increasingly evolving to integrate the relationships between traits and the environment, which can significantly improve estimates of changes in ecosystems, notes Hik.
"Over the past decade, we have documented changes in alpine tundra vegetation in the Yukon that are consistent with this global analysis, including larger shrubs and the increasing diversity of tundra plant communities.
"The functional characteristics described in the study show how environmental factors shape the biotic communities in the tundra, and in particular our study underscores the importance of taking into account future changes in water availability, because change for many traits. "
The researchers also found no evidence of a decline in shorter species because of the larger species, at least so far. They also suggest that the plant community's response to global warming will depend on whether the tundra becomes wetter or drier over time.
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The study was initiated by a team of researchers supported by the German Center for Research on Integrative Biodiversity (iDiv) of the University of Leipzig. Hik's long-term research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).
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