Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization
The rapid warming of the Arctic may not only alter species’ abundances and distributions, but likely also the trophic interactions within and between ecosystems. On the high‐arctic tundra, extreme warm spells and associated rain‐on‐snow events in winter can encapsulate the vegetation entirely in gro...
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Ecological Society of America
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2597438 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2672 |
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ftntnutrondheimi:oai:ntnuopen.ntnu.no:11250/2597438 2023-05-15T15:00:00+02:00 Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization Hansen, Brage Bremset Lorentzen, Jon Runar Welker, Jeffrey M. Varpe, Øystein Aanes, Ronny Beumer, Larissa Teresa Pedersen, Åshild Ø. 2019 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2597438 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2672 eng eng Ecological Society of America https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.2672 Norges forskningsråd: 235503 Norges forskningsråd: 223257 Norges forskningsråd: 276080 Norges forskningsråd: 244647 urn:issn:2150-8925 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2597438 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2672 cristin:1696230 Navngivelse 4.0 Internasjonal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.no CC-BY 10 Ecosphere Journal article Peer reviewed 2019 ftntnutrondheimi https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2672 2019-09-17T06:55:02Z The rapid warming of the Arctic may not only alter species’ abundances and distributions, but likely also the trophic interactions within and between ecosystems. On the high‐arctic tundra, extreme warm spells and associated rain‐on‐snow events in winter can encapsulate the vegetation entirely in ground‐ice (i.e., basal ice) and directly or indirectly affect plants, herbivores, and carnivores. However, the implications of such extreme events for trophic interactions and food‐web ecology are generally far from understood. Here, we show that wild Svalbard reindeer populations increasingly isolated by lack of sea‐ice respond to rain‐on‐snow and ice‐locked pastures by increased kelp consumption. Based on annual population surveys in late winters 2006–2015, the proportion of individual reindeer feeding along the shoreline increased the icier the winter. Stable isotope values (δ34S, δ13C, δ15N) of plants, washed‐ashore kelp, and fresh reindeer feces collected along coast‐inland gradients, confirmed ingestion of marine biomass by the reindeer in the shoreline habitat. Thus, even on remote islands and peninsulas increasingly isolated by sea‐ice loss, effects of climate change may be buffered in part by behavioral plasticity and increased use of resource subsidies. This marine dimension of a terrestrial herbivore's realized foraging niche adds to evidence that global warming significantly alters trophic interactions as well as meta‐ecosystem processes. publishedVersion © 2019 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change Global warming Sea ice Svalbard svalbard reindeer Tundra NTNU Open Archive (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) Arctic Svalbard Ecosphere 10 4 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
NTNU Open Archive (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftntnutrondheimi |
language |
English |
description |
The rapid warming of the Arctic may not only alter species’ abundances and distributions, but likely also the trophic interactions within and between ecosystems. On the high‐arctic tundra, extreme warm spells and associated rain‐on‐snow events in winter can encapsulate the vegetation entirely in ground‐ice (i.e., basal ice) and directly or indirectly affect plants, herbivores, and carnivores. However, the implications of such extreme events for trophic interactions and food‐web ecology are generally far from understood. Here, we show that wild Svalbard reindeer populations increasingly isolated by lack of sea‐ice respond to rain‐on‐snow and ice‐locked pastures by increased kelp consumption. Based on annual population surveys in late winters 2006–2015, the proportion of individual reindeer feeding along the shoreline increased the icier the winter. Stable isotope values (δ34S, δ13C, δ15N) of plants, washed‐ashore kelp, and fresh reindeer feces collected along coast‐inland gradients, confirmed ingestion of marine biomass by the reindeer in the shoreline habitat. Thus, even on remote islands and peninsulas increasingly isolated by sea‐ice loss, effects of climate change may be buffered in part by behavioral plasticity and increased use of resource subsidies. This marine dimension of a terrestrial herbivore's realized foraging niche adds to evidence that global warming significantly alters trophic interactions as well as meta‐ecosystem processes. publishedVersion © 2019 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Hansen, Brage Bremset Lorentzen, Jon Runar Welker, Jeffrey M. Varpe, Øystein Aanes, Ronny Beumer, Larissa Teresa Pedersen, Åshild Ø. |
spellingShingle |
Hansen, Brage Bremset Lorentzen, Jon Runar Welker, Jeffrey M. Varpe, Øystein Aanes, Ronny Beumer, Larissa Teresa Pedersen, Åshild Ø. Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization |
author_facet |
Hansen, Brage Bremset Lorentzen, Jon Runar Welker, Jeffrey M. Varpe, Øystein Aanes, Ronny Beumer, Larissa Teresa Pedersen, Åshild Ø. |
author_sort |
Hansen, Brage Bremset |
title |
Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization |
title_short |
Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization |
title_full |
Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization |
title_fullStr |
Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization |
title_full_unstemmed |
Reindeer turning maritime: Ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization |
title_sort |
reindeer turning maritime: ice-locked tundra triggers changes in dietary niche utilization |
publisher |
Ecological Society of America |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2597438 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2672 |
geographic |
Arctic Svalbard |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Svalbard |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Global warming Sea ice Svalbard svalbard reindeer Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Global warming Sea ice Svalbard svalbard reindeer Tundra |
op_source |
10 Ecosphere |
op_relation |
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.2672 Norges forskningsråd: 235503 Norges forskningsråd: 223257 Norges forskningsråd: 276080 Norges forskningsråd: 244647 urn:issn:2150-8925 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2597438 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2672 cristin:1696230 |
op_rights |
Navngivelse 4.0 Internasjonal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.no |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2672 |
container_title |
Ecosphere |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
4 |
_version_ |
1766332107296079872 |