Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon
Widespread changes in the distribution and abundance of plant functional types (PFTs) are occurring in Arctic and boreal ecosystems due to the intensification of disturbances, such as fire, and climate-driven vegetation dynamics, such as tundra shrub expansion. To understand how these changes affect...
Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
IOP Publishing
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 https://doaj.org/article/dcd8750ac08d4a19807f579e272107f9 |
id |
ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:dcd8750ac08d4a19807f579e272107f9 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:dcd8750ac08d4a19807f579e272107f9 2024-02-11T10:00:59+01:00 Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon Matthew J Macander Peter R Nelson Timm W Nawrocki Gerald V Frost Kathleen M Orndahl Eric C Palm Aaron F Wells Scott J Goetz 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 https://doaj.org/article/dcd8750ac08d4a19807f579e272107f9 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/dcd8750ac08d4a19807f579e272107f9 Environmental Research Letters, Vol 17, Iss 5, p 054042 (2022) plant functional type plant cover Alaska Canada Landsat Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 2024-01-14T01:37:03Z Widespread changes in the distribution and abundance of plant functional types (PFTs) are occurring in Arctic and boreal ecosystems due to the intensification of disturbances, such as fire, and climate-driven vegetation dynamics, such as tundra shrub expansion. To understand how these changes affect boreal and tundra ecosystems, we need to first quantify change for multiple PFTs across recent years. While landscape patches are generally composed of a mixture of PFTs, most previous moderate resolution (30 m) remote sensing analyses have mapped vegetation distribution and change within land cover categories that are based on the dominant PFT; or else the continuous distribution of one or a few PFTs, but for a single point in time. Here we map a 35 year time-series (1985–2020) of top cover (TC) for seven PFTs across a 1.77 × 10 ^6 km ^2 study area in northern and central Alaska and northwestern Canada. We improve on previous methods of detecting vegetation change by modeling TC, a continuous measure of plant abundance. The PFTs collectively include all vascular plants within the study area as well as light macrolichens, a nonvascular class of high importance to caribou management. We identified net increases in deciduous shrubs (66 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), evergreen shrubs (20 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), broadleaf trees (17 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), and conifer trees (16 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), and net decreases in graminoids (−40 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ) and light macrolichens (−13 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ) over the full map area, with similar patterns across Arctic, oroarctic, and boreal bioclimatic zones. Model performance was assessed using spatially blocked, nested five-fold cross-validation with overall root mean square errors ranging from 8.3% to 19.0%. Most net change occurred as succession or plant expansion within areas undisturbed by recent fire, though PFT TC change also clearly resulted from fire disturbance. These maps have important applications for assessment of surface energy budgets, permafrost changes, nutrient cycling, and wildlife management and ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic permafrost Tundra Alaska Yukon Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Canada Yukon Environmental Research Letters 17 5 054042 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
plant functional type plant cover Alaska Canada Landsat Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
plant functional type plant cover Alaska Canada Landsat Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Matthew J Macander Peter R Nelson Timm W Nawrocki Gerald V Frost Kathleen M Orndahl Eric C Palm Aaron F Wells Scott J Goetz Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon |
topic_facet |
plant functional type plant cover Alaska Canada Landsat Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Widespread changes in the distribution and abundance of plant functional types (PFTs) are occurring in Arctic and boreal ecosystems due to the intensification of disturbances, such as fire, and climate-driven vegetation dynamics, such as tundra shrub expansion. To understand how these changes affect boreal and tundra ecosystems, we need to first quantify change for multiple PFTs across recent years. While landscape patches are generally composed of a mixture of PFTs, most previous moderate resolution (30 m) remote sensing analyses have mapped vegetation distribution and change within land cover categories that are based on the dominant PFT; or else the continuous distribution of one or a few PFTs, but for a single point in time. Here we map a 35 year time-series (1985–2020) of top cover (TC) for seven PFTs across a 1.77 × 10 ^6 km ^2 study area in northern and central Alaska and northwestern Canada. We improve on previous methods of detecting vegetation change by modeling TC, a continuous measure of plant abundance. The PFTs collectively include all vascular plants within the study area as well as light macrolichens, a nonvascular class of high importance to caribou management. We identified net increases in deciduous shrubs (66 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), evergreen shrubs (20 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), broadleaf trees (17 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), and conifer trees (16 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ), and net decreases in graminoids (−40 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ) and light macrolichens (−13 × 10 ^3 km ^2 ) over the full map area, with similar patterns across Arctic, oroarctic, and boreal bioclimatic zones. Model performance was assessed using spatially blocked, nested five-fold cross-validation with overall root mean square errors ranging from 8.3% to 19.0%. Most net change occurred as succession or plant expansion within areas undisturbed by recent fire, though PFT TC change also clearly resulted from fire disturbance. These maps have important applications for assessment of surface energy budgets, permafrost changes, nutrient cycling, and wildlife management and ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Matthew J Macander Peter R Nelson Timm W Nawrocki Gerald V Frost Kathleen M Orndahl Eric C Palm Aaron F Wells Scott J Goetz |
author_facet |
Matthew J Macander Peter R Nelson Timm W Nawrocki Gerald V Frost Kathleen M Orndahl Eric C Palm Aaron F Wells Scott J Goetz |
author_sort |
Matthew J Macander |
title |
Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon |
title_short |
Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon |
title_full |
Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon |
title_fullStr |
Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon |
title_full_unstemmed |
Time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across Arctic and boreal Alaska and Yukon |
title_sort |
time-series maps reveal widespread change in plant functional type cover across arctic and boreal alaska and yukon |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 https://doaj.org/article/dcd8750ac08d4a19807f579e272107f9 |
geographic |
Arctic Canada Yukon |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Canada Yukon |
genre |
Arctic permafrost Tundra Alaska Yukon |
genre_facet |
Arctic permafrost Tundra Alaska Yukon |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 17, Iss 5, p 054042 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/dcd8750ac08d4a19807f579e272107f9 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6965 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
5 |
container_start_page |
054042 |
_version_ |
1790596712441577472 |