TY - JOUR
T1 - Growth rings show limited evidence for ungulates' potential to suppress shrubs across the Arctic
AU - Vuorinen, Katariina E.M.
AU - Austrheim, Gunnar
AU - Tremblay, Jean Pierre
AU - Myers-Smith, Isla H.
AU - Hortman, Hans I.
AU - Frank, Peter
AU - Barrio, Isabel C.
AU - Dalerum, Fredrik
AU - Björkman, Mats P.
AU - Björk, Robert G.
AU - Ehrich, Dorothee
AU - Sokolov, Aleksandr
AU - Sokolova, Natalya
AU - Ropars, Pascale
AU - Boudreau, Stéphane
AU - Normand, Signe
AU - Prendin, Angela L.
AU - Schmidt, Niels Martin
AU - Pacheco-Solana, Arturo
AU - Post, Eric
AU - John, Christian
AU - Kerby, Jeff
AU - Sullivan, Patrick F.
AU - Moullec, Mathilde Le
AU - Hansen, Brage B.
AU - Van Der Wal, Rene
AU - Pedersen, Åshild O.
AU - Sandal, Lisa
AU - Gough, Laura
AU - Young, Amanda
AU - Li, Bingxi
AU - Magnússon, Rúna I.
AU - Sass-Klaassen, Ute
AU - Buchwal, Agata
AU - Welker, Jeffrey
AU - Grogan, Paul
AU - Andruko, Rhett
AU - Morrissette-Boileau, Clara
AU - Volkovitskiy, Alexander
AU - Terekhina, Alexandra
AU - Speed, James D.M.
N1 - Funding Information:
The core funding for the study was provided by the Research Council of Norway (Project nr. 262064). With regards to individual datasets, we wish to thank the following funding sources: Fieldwork in Iceland was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund (Rannsóknasjóður, Grant 152468‐051); The fence study and shrub sampling in Erkuta was supported by the Russian Fund of Basic Research (Grant #18-05-60261) and the terrestrial flagship of the Fram Centre (362259 Yamal EcoSystem); The fence studies in Hol and Setesdal were funded by the Research Council of Norway (NFR FRIMEDBIO 262064); Herbivory data collection in Kangerlussuaq was funded by National Geographic Society for Research and Exploration and shrub-ring work by the National Science Foundation (United States), Office of Polar Programs Award Numbers OPP-1108425 to P F S and J M W and OPP-1107381 to E P, with additional support by the National Science Foundation (United States), Division of Environmental Biology Award Numbers DEB-0217259 and DEB-0415843 to E P; Jeff Kerby was supported by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 754513 and The Aarhus University Research Foundation; work by Robert G Björk on Swedish reindeer data and shrub sampling was funded by The Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development, FORMAS (Grant 214-2010-1411), and The Swedish Research Council, VR (Grant 621-2014-5315); shrub data from Svalbard was funded by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the Research Council of Norway (Projects 223257, 216051 and 276080), and annual reindeer censuses (Brøggerhalvøya) were funded by the Norwegian Polar Institute; Shrub data collection at Toolik was supported by Polish-US Fulbright Commission, National Science Foundation-Arctic Observing Network, and the Arctic LTER (US National Science Foundation Grant #1637459), and the herbivore data by Toolik Field Station Environmental Data Center and the State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game; Data from Deception Bay were acquired through the Caribou Ungava research program funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, ArcticNet, Hydro Québec, Glencore, Fédération des pourvoiries du Québec inc., and Makivik Corporation; Daring Lake shrub and herbivory data collection was supported by the NSERC Discovery and USRA Grants (PG and RA respectively); work by Arturo Pacheco-Solana and Angela L. Prendin on shrub data from Zackenberg was supported by the Villum Young Investigator Programme (VKR023456 to Signe Normand); Qikiqtaruk shrub and herbivory data collection was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council ShrubTundra Grant (NE/M016323/1) to Isla Myers-Smith and NSERC and the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund to Sandra Angers‐Blondin; Shrub collection in Chokurdakh was financed by the Darwin Center for Biogeosciences, Wageningen Institute for Environment and Climate Research (WIMEK) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, Vidi Grant 864.09.014) and received logistic support from the Institute for Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk and the Regional Inspection of Nature Protection of Allaikhovsky Region, Chokurdakh, and from NWO Earth and Life Sciences, Project ALWPP. 2016.008 for Rúna Í. Magnússon. In addition, we would like to thank Sigrid S Nielsen for contributing to the early stages of the shrub data from Zackenberg; Dr Ryan Danby (Queen’s university) for assistance and advice with dendrochronological part of Daring Lake shrub data; The Quarqalik landholding corporation of Salluit for welcoming research team on their land; and the Herschel Island‐Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park rangers, Team Shrub field and laboratory assistants, especially Sandra Angers-Blondin, for assisting with the shrub and herbivore data collection in Qikiqtaruk, and the Inuvialuit People for the opportunity to conduct research on their land.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
PY - 2022/2/22
Y1 - 2022/2/22
N2 - Global warming has pronounced effects on tundra vegetation, and rising mean temperatures increase plant growth potential across the Arctic biome. Herbivores may counteract the warming impacts by reducing plant growth, but the strength of this effect may depend on prevailing regional climatic conditions. To study how ungulates interact with temperature to influence growth of tundra shrubs across the Arctic tundra biome, we assembled dendroecological data from 20 sites, comprising 1153 individual shrubs and 223 63 annual growth rings. Evidence for ungulates suppressing shrub radial growth was only observed at intermediate summer temperatures (6.5 °C-9 °C), and even at these temperatures the effect was not strong. Multiple factors, including forage preferences and landscape use by the ungulates, and favourable climatic conditions enabling effective compensatory growth of shrubs, may weaken the effects of ungulates on shrubs, possibly explaining the weakness of observed ungulate effects. Earlier local studies have shown that ungulates may counteract the impacts of warming on tundra shrub growth, but we demonstrate that ungulates' potential to suppress shrub radial growth is not always evident, and may be limited to certain climatic conditions.
AB - Global warming has pronounced effects on tundra vegetation, and rising mean temperatures increase plant growth potential across the Arctic biome. Herbivores may counteract the warming impacts by reducing plant growth, but the strength of this effect may depend on prevailing regional climatic conditions. To study how ungulates interact with temperature to influence growth of tundra shrubs across the Arctic tundra biome, we assembled dendroecological data from 20 sites, comprising 1153 individual shrubs and 223 63 annual growth rings. Evidence for ungulates suppressing shrub radial growth was only observed at intermediate summer temperatures (6.5 °C-9 °C), and even at these temperatures the effect was not strong. Multiple factors, including forage preferences and landscape use by the ungulates, and favourable climatic conditions enabling effective compensatory growth of shrubs, may weaken the effects of ungulates on shrubs, possibly explaining the weakness of observed ungulate effects. Earlier local studies have shown that ungulates may counteract the impacts of warming on tundra shrub growth, but we demonstrate that ungulates' potential to suppress shrub radial growth is not always evident, and may be limited to certain climatic conditions.
KW - Arctic
KW - browsing
KW - climate change
KW - dendroecology
KW - herbivory
KW - shrub
KW - tundra
U2 - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac5207
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac5207
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85126031877
SN - 1748-9318
VL - 17
JO - Environmental Research Letters
JF - Environmental Research Letters
IS - 3
M1 - 034013
ER -