Sea-ice induced growth decline in Arctic shrubs
Measures of increased tundra plant productivity have been associated with the accelerating retreat of the Arctic sea-ice. Emerging studies document opposite effects, advocating for a more complex relationship between the shrinking sea-ice and terrestrial plant productivity. I introduce an autoregres...
| Published in: | Biology Letters |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
The Royal Society
2017
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5582100/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28835469 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0122 |
| Summary: | Measures of increased tundra plant productivity have been associated with the accelerating retreat of the Arctic sea-ice. Emerging studies document opposite effects, advocating for a more complex relationship between the shrinking sea-ice and terrestrial plant productivity. I introduce an autoregressive plant growth model integrating effects of biological and climatic conditions for analysing individual ring-width growth time series. Using 128 specimens of Salix arctica, S. glauca and Betula nana sampled across Greenland to Svalbard, an overall negative effect of the retreating June sea-ice extent was found on the annual growth. The negative effect of the retreating June sea-ice was observed for younger individuals with large annual growth allocations and with little or no trade-off between previous and current year's growth. |
|---|