Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation
Climate change has been observed to expand distributions of woody plants in many areas of arctic and alpine environments—a phenomenon called shrubification. New spatial arrangements of shrubs cause further changes in vegetation via changing dynamics of biotic interactions. However, the mediating inf...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:ff94079a9dc14c9b910ecea5cab0273b 2023-09-05T13:17:14+02:00 Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation Heidi K Mod Miska Luoto 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 https://doaj.org/article/ff94079a9dc14c9b910ecea5cab0273b EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/ff94079a9dc14c9b910ecea5cab0273b Environmental Research Letters, Vol 11, Iss 12, p 124028 (2016) biotic interactions climate change shrub spatial modelling tundra vegetation Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2016 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 2023-08-13T00:37:52Z Climate change has been observed to expand distributions of woody plants in many areas of arctic and alpine environments—a phenomenon called shrubification. New spatial arrangements of shrubs cause further changes in vegetation via changing dynamics of biotic interactions. However, the mediating influence of shrubification is rarely acknowledged in predictions of tundra vegetation change. Here, we examine possible warming-induced landscape-level vegetation changes in a high-latitude environment using species distribution modelling (SDM), specifically concentrating on the impacts of shrubification on ambient vegetation. First, we produced estimates of current shrub and tree cover and forecasts of their expansion under climate change scenarios to be incorporated to SDMs of 116 vascular plants. Second, the predictions of vegetation change based on the models including only abiotic predictors and the models including abiotic, shrub and tree predictors were compared in a representative test area. Based on our model predictions, abundance of woody plants will expand, thus decreasing predicted species richness, amplifying species turnover and increasing the local extinction risk for ambient vegetation. However, the spatial variation demonstrated in our predictions highlights that tundra vegetation can be expected to show a wide variety of different responses to the combined effects of warming and shrubification, depending on the original plant species pool and environmental conditions. We conclude that realistic forecasts of the future require acknowledging the role of shrubification in warming-induced tundra vegetation change. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change Tundra Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Environmental Research Letters 11 12 124028 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
biotic interactions climate change shrub spatial modelling tundra vegetation Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
biotic interactions climate change shrub spatial modelling tundra vegetation Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Heidi K Mod Miska Luoto Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation |
topic_facet |
biotic interactions climate change shrub spatial modelling tundra vegetation Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Climate change has been observed to expand distributions of woody plants in many areas of arctic and alpine environments—a phenomenon called shrubification. New spatial arrangements of shrubs cause further changes in vegetation via changing dynamics of biotic interactions. However, the mediating influence of shrubification is rarely acknowledged in predictions of tundra vegetation change. Here, we examine possible warming-induced landscape-level vegetation changes in a high-latitude environment using species distribution modelling (SDM), specifically concentrating on the impacts of shrubification on ambient vegetation. First, we produced estimates of current shrub and tree cover and forecasts of their expansion under climate change scenarios to be incorporated to SDMs of 116 vascular plants. Second, the predictions of vegetation change based on the models including only abiotic predictors and the models including abiotic, shrub and tree predictors were compared in a representative test area. Based on our model predictions, abundance of woody plants will expand, thus decreasing predicted species richness, amplifying species turnover and increasing the local extinction risk for ambient vegetation. However, the spatial variation demonstrated in our predictions highlights that tundra vegetation can be expected to show a wide variety of different responses to the combined effects of warming and shrubification, depending on the original plant species pool and environmental conditions. We conclude that realistic forecasts of the future require acknowledging the role of shrubification in warming-induced tundra vegetation change. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Heidi K Mod Miska Luoto |
author_facet |
Heidi K Mod Miska Luoto |
author_sort |
Heidi K Mod |
title |
Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation |
title_short |
Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation |
title_full |
Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation |
title_fullStr |
Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation |
title_full_unstemmed |
Arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation |
title_sort |
arctic shrubification mediates the impacts of warming climate on changes to tundra vegetation |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 https://doaj.org/article/ff94079a9dc14c9b910ecea5cab0273b |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Tundra |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 11, Iss 12, p 124028 (2016) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/ff94079a9dc14c9b910ecea5cab0273b |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124028 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
124028 |
_version_ |
1776198489907134464 |