UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation
Understanding how herbivores shape plant biomass and distribution is a core challenge in ecology. Yet, the lack of suitable remote sensing technology limits our knowledge of temporal and spatial impacts of mammal herbivores in the Earth system. The regular interannual density fluctuations of voles a...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8484448 2023-05-15T14:47:07+02:00 UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation Siewert, Matthias B. Olofsson, Johan 2021-09-30 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484448/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34593844 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98497-5 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484448/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34593844 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98497-5 © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2021 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98497-5 2021-10-10T00:31:13Z Understanding how herbivores shape plant biomass and distribution is a core challenge in ecology. Yet, the lack of suitable remote sensing technology limits our knowledge of temporal and spatial impacts of mammal herbivores in the Earth system. The regular interannual density fluctuations of voles and lemmings are exceptional with their large reduction of plant biomass in Arctic landscapes during peak years (12–24%) as previously shown at large spatial scales using satellites. This provides evidence that herbivores are important drivers of observed global changes in vegetation productivity. Here, we use a novel approach with repeated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights, to map vegetation impact by rodents, indicating that many important aspects of vegetation dynamics otherwise hidden by the coarse resolution of satellite images, including plant–herbivore interactions, can be revealed using UAVs. We quantify areas impacted by rodents at four complex Arctic landscapes with very high spatial resolution UAV imagery to get a new perspective on how herbivores shape Arctic ecosystems. The area impacted by voles and lemmings is indeed substantial, larger at higher altitude tundra environments, varies between habitats depending on local snow cover and plant community composition, and is heterogeneous even within habitats at submeter scales. Coupling this with spectral reflectance of vegetation (NDVI), we can show that the impact on central ecosystem properties like GPP and biomass is stronger than currently accounted for in Arctic ecosystems. As an emerging technology, UAVs will allow us to better disentangle important information on how herbivores maintain spatial heterogeneity, function and diversity in natural ecosystems. Text Arctic Tundra PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Scientific Reports 11 1 |
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Article Siewert, Matthias B. Olofsson, Johan UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation |
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Article |
description |
Understanding how herbivores shape plant biomass and distribution is a core challenge in ecology. Yet, the lack of suitable remote sensing technology limits our knowledge of temporal and spatial impacts of mammal herbivores in the Earth system. The regular interannual density fluctuations of voles and lemmings are exceptional with their large reduction of plant biomass in Arctic landscapes during peak years (12–24%) as previously shown at large spatial scales using satellites. This provides evidence that herbivores are important drivers of observed global changes in vegetation productivity. Here, we use a novel approach with repeated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights, to map vegetation impact by rodents, indicating that many important aspects of vegetation dynamics otherwise hidden by the coarse resolution of satellite images, including plant–herbivore interactions, can be revealed using UAVs. We quantify areas impacted by rodents at four complex Arctic landscapes with very high spatial resolution UAV imagery to get a new perspective on how herbivores shape Arctic ecosystems. The area impacted by voles and lemmings is indeed substantial, larger at higher altitude tundra environments, varies between habitats depending on local snow cover and plant community composition, and is heterogeneous even within habitats at submeter scales. Coupling this with spectral reflectance of vegetation (NDVI), we can show that the impact on central ecosystem properties like GPP and biomass is stronger than currently accounted for in Arctic ecosystems. As an emerging technology, UAVs will allow us to better disentangle important information on how herbivores maintain spatial heterogeneity, function and diversity in natural ecosystems. |
format |
Text |
author |
Siewert, Matthias B. Olofsson, Johan |
author_facet |
Siewert, Matthias B. Olofsson, Johan |
author_sort |
Siewert, Matthias B. |
title |
UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation |
title_short |
UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation |
title_full |
UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation |
title_fullStr |
UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation |
title_full_unstemmed |
UAV reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation |
title_sort |
uav reveals substantial but heterogeneous effects of herbivores on arctic vegetation |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484448/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34593844 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98497-5 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Tundra |
op_source |
Sci Rep |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8484448/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34593844 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98497-5 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98497-5 |
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