Replication Data for: Greening conceals evergreening: can allelopathy undermine the resource base of a reindeer pastoralist system?

• Main Author: Tuomi, Maria W.
• Other Authors: Tuomi, Maria, Maria W. Tuomi, Kari Anne Bråthen, Tove Aa. Utsi, Sophia Zielosko, Hanna Böhner, Karoline Helene Aares, Hans Ivar Hortmann, Lea Lipphardt, Katrine S. Hoset, Kinga Skalska-Tuomi, Sindre Natvik
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: DataverseNO 2020
• Subjects: Earth and Environmental Sciences; community ecology; reindeer husbandry; crowberry; dwarf-shrubs; forbs; management; allelopathy; Arctic; Norway; Arctic Greening; Crowberry; Northern Norway; Tundra
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.18710/WZ5RSE

1. Ongoing Arctic greening can increase productivity and reindeer pasture quality in the tundra. However, greening may also entail proliferation of unpalatable species, with distinct consequences for pastoral socialo-ecological systems (SES). 2. We show extensive greening across 20 reindeer districts in northern Norway between 2003 and 2020. The allelopathic, evergreen dwarf-shrub crowberry biomass increased by 60%, contrasted by smaller increases of deciduous dwarf-shrubs and stagnating forb and graminoid biomass. 3. We found evidence, although uncertain, of a negative relationship between biomass and reindeer densities, but only among forbs, the least abundant plant group. 4. Our results challenge the management decision-making, which aims at sustainable pasture management, but which assumes stationary density-dependent relationships. Adaptive management criteria sensitive to changes in focal resource-consumer relationships could help to avoid mismanaging a SES in transition. 5. Large-scale shift towards increased allelopathy may undermine the resource base of a key Arctic herbivore and pastoral SES.