Cassiope tetragona as a dendroecological proxy : a retrospective analysis of experimental warming in the Arctic Tundra ...

Annual stem growth and reproductive effort of the evergreen dwarf-shrub, Cassiope tetragona, exhibit a strong positive relationship to summer temperature and have been used in dendroclimatological analyses to reconstruct climate in the High Arctic through the application of transfer function equatio...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Gallois, Elise
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: University of British Columbia 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0380613
https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0380613
Description
Summary:Annual stem growth and reproductive effort of the evergreen dwarf-shrub, Cassiope tetragona, exhibit a strong positive relationship to summer temperature and have been used in dendroclimatological analyses to reconstruct climate in the High Arctic through the application of transfer function equations. Retrospective analysis of the annual growth increments have also previously been used to examine the impact of short term warming in a few tundra sites. This thesis presents a full retrospective analysis approach to reconstruct the impact of long-term experimental warming in tundra communities at Alexandra Fiord (Ellesmere Island) from before the installation of open-top-chambers in 1992 to the present day, using a before-after-control-intervention design on growth and reproduction variables. We found a positive, significant effect of experimental warming on the stem growth of C. tetragona and revealed that phenology stages (such as bud break, flowering, and fruit production) take place significantly earlier ...