Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate?
Reports of fading vole and lemming population cycles and persisting low populations in some parts of the Arctic have raised concerns about the spread of these fundamental changes to tundra food web dynamics. By compiling 24 unique time series of lemming population fluctuations across the circumpolar...
Published in: | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 |
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 2024-06-23T07:49:48+00:00 Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? Gauthier, Gilles Ehrich, Dorothée Belke-Brea, Maria Domine, Florent Alisauskas, Ray Clark, Karin Ecke, Frauke Eide, Nina E. Framstad, Erik Frandsen, Jay Gilg, Olivier Henttonen, Heikki Hörnfeldt, Birger Kataev, Gennadiy D. Menyushina, Irina E. Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Olofsson, Johan Samelius, Gustaf Sittler, Benoit Smith, Paul A. Sokolov, Aleksandr A. Sokolova, Natalia A. Schmidt, Niels M. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Danish Environmental Protection Agency Norwegian Environment Agency ArcticNet Network of Centers of Excellence 2024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/-/media/journals/author/Licence-to-Publish-20062019-final.pdf https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences volume 291, issue 2016 ISSN 0962-8452 1471-2954 journal-article 2024 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 2024-06-10T04:15:16Z Reports of fading vole and lemming population cycles and persisting low populations in some parts of the Arctic have raised concerns about the spread of these fundamental changes to tundra food web dynamics. By compiling 24 unique time series of lemming population fluctuations across the circumpolar region, we show that virtually all populations displayed alternating periods of cyclic/non-cyclic fluctuations over the past four decades. Cyclic patterns were detected 55% of the time ( n = 649 years pooled across sites) with a median periodicity of 3.7 years, and non-cyclic periods were not more frequent in recent years. Overall, there was an indication for a negative effect of warm spells occurring during the snow onset period of the preceding year on lemming abundance. However, winter duration or early winter climatic conditions did not differ on average between cyclic and non-cyclic periods. Analysis of the time series shows that there is presently no Arctic-wide collapse of lemming cycles, even though cycles have been sporadic at most sites during the last decades. Although non-stationary dynamics appears a common feature of lemming populations also in the past, continued warming in early winter may decrease the frequency of periodic irruptions with negative consequences for tundra ecosystems. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Tundra The Royal Society Arctic Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 291 2016 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
The Royal Society |
op_collection_id |
crroyalsociety |
language |
English |
description |
Reports of fading vole and lemming population cycles and persisting low populations in some parts of the Arctic have raised concerns about the spread of these fundamental changes to tundra food web dynamics. By compiling 24 unique time series of lemming population fluctuations across the circumpolar region, we show that virtually all populations displayed alternating periods of cyclic/non-cyclic fluctuations over the past four decades. Cyclic patterns were detected 55% of the time ( n = 649 years pooled across sites) with a median periodicity of 3.7 years, and non-cyclic periods were not more frequent in recent years. Overall, there was an indication for a negative effect of warm spells occurring during the snow onset period of the preceding year on lemming abundance. However, winter duration or early winter climatic conditions did not differ on average between cyclic and non-cyclic periods. Analysis of the time series shows that there is presently no Arctic-wide collapse of lemming cycles, even though cycles have been sporadic at most sites during the last decades. Although non-stationary dynamics appears a common feature of lemming populations also in the past, continued warming in early winter may decrease the frequency of periodic irruptions with negative consequences for tundra ecosystems. |
author2 |
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Danish Environmental Protection Agency Norwegian Environment Agency ArcticNet Network of Centers of Excellence |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Gauthier, Gilles Ehrich, Dorothée Belke-Brea, Maria Domine, Florent Alisauskas, Ray Clark, Karin Ecke, Frauke Eide, Nina E. Framstad, Erik Frandsen, Jay Gilg, Olivier Henttonen, Heikki Hörnfeldt, Birger Kataev, Gennadiy D. Menyushina, Irina E. Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Olofsson, Johan Samelius, Gustaf Sittler, Benoit Smith, Paul A. Sokolov, Aleksandr A. Sokolova, Natalia A. Schmidt, Niels M. |
spellingShingle |
Gauthier, Gilles Ehrich, Dorothée Belke-Brea, Maria Domine, Florent Alisauskas, Ray Clark, Karin Ecke, Frauke Eide, Nina E. Framstad, Erik Frandsen, Jay Gilg, Olivier Henttonen, Heikki Hörnfeldt, Birger Kataev, Gennadiy D. Menyushina, Irina E. Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Olofsson, Johan Samelius, Gustaf Sittler, Benoit Smith, Paul A. Sokolov, Aleksandr A. Sokolova, Natalia A. Schmidt, Niels M. Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? |
author_facet |
Gauthier, Gilles Ehrich, Dorothée Belke-Brea, Maria Domine, Florent Alisauskas, Ray Clark, Karin Ecke, Frauke Eide, Nina E. Framstad, Erik Frandsen, Jay Gilg, Olivier Henttonen, Heikki Hörnfeldt, Birger Kataev, Gennadiy D. Menyushina, Irina E. Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Olofsson, Johan Samelius, Gustaf Sittler, Benoit Smith, Paul A. Sokolov, Aleksandr A. Sokolova, Natalia A. Schmidt, Niels M. |
author_sort |
Gauthier, Gilles |
title |
Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? |
title_short |
Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? |
title_full |
Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? |
title_fullStr |
Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Taking the beat of the Arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? |
title_sort |
taking the beat of the arctic: are lemming population cycles changing due to winter climate? |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2024 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Tundra |
op_source |
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences volume 291, issue 2016 ISSN 0962-8452 1471-2954 |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/journals/author/Licence-to-Publish-20062019-final.pdf https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2361 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
container_volume |
291 |
container_issue |
2016 |
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1802640484723589120 |