Effects on the structure of Arctic ecosystems in the short- and long-term perspectives

• Main Authors: Terry V. Callaghan, Lars Olof Björn, Yuri Chernov, Terry Chapin, Torben R. Christensen, Brian Huntley, Rolf A. Ims, Margareta Johansson, Dyanna Jolly, Sven Jonasson, Nadya Matveyeva, Nicolai Panikov, Walter Oechel, Gus Shaver, Heikki Henttonen, Polar Desert Ecosystems
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Tundra
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.462.2543

Species individualistic responses to warming and in-creased UV-B radiation are moderated by the responses of neighbors within communities, and trophic interactions within ecosystems. All of these responses lead to changes in ecosystem structure. Experimental manipulation of en-vironmental factors expected to change at high latitudes showed that summer warming of tundra vegetation has generally led to smaller changes than fertilizer addition. Some of the factors manipulated have strong effects on the structure of Arctic ecosystems but the effects vary regionally, with the greatest response of plant and inver-tebrate communities being observed at the coldest loca-tions. Arctic invertebrate communities are very likely to respond rapidly to warming whereas microbial biomass and nutrient stocks are more stable. Experimentally en-