Shrubs Effects on Soil Temperatures, Snow Depth, and Vegetation Greenness in Arctic-alpine Tundra

• Main Author: Bäckman, Alfred
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English; Swedish
• Published: SLU/Dept. of Soil and Environment 2024
• Subjects: Arctic; soil temperature; phenology; snow effects; NDVI; shrubification; tundra; Abisko; Buskar; Arktis*; Climate change; subarktisk; Tundra
• Online Access: https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/20331/

Arctic ecosystems experience rapid changes in temperatures due to climate-induced warming and as an effect, deciduous shrub abundance is increasing throughout the northern hemisphere. The expansion of tall shrubs can affect snow coverage, soil temperatures, nutrient cycles, and, in turn, the life cycle of many other arctic organisms. Since 2018, the project ALTER has experimentally removed vegetation with certain mycorrhizal connections from sub-arctic tundra heath in Abisko. In this study, I use data from the ALTER project alongside snow measurements made on April 24th, 2024 to explore how the removal of tall deciduous shrubs with ectomycorrhizal associations affects soil temperatures, greenness, snow depth, and, snow coverage compared to a no-removal control. Removal of tall shrubs showed no significant correlation, only trends affecting spring and summer temperatures. The removal did not affect snow depth or snow coverage with differences most likely dependent on other factors such as microtopography. Differences in greenness were not significant and most likely too small to show any meaningful results but did, however, highlight a need for extended greenness measurements to capture differences throughout the growing season. This study further emphasizes the need for long-term ecological research to gain insight into slow-moving ecological effects following climate change. Arktiska ekosystem upplever snabba förändringar i temperatur på grund av klimat-inducerad uppvärmning och som en effekt ökar förekomsten av lövfällande buskar över det norra halvklotet. Denna utbredning av höga buskar kan påverka snötäckning, marktemperaturer, växtnäringskretslopp och till följd livscyklerna hos många andra arktiska organismer. Sedan 2018 har projektet ALTER gjort experimentell borttagning av vegetation baserad på mycorrhizainteraktioner från subarktisk tundrahed i Abisko. I den här studien använder jag data från ALTER projektet tillsammans med egna snömätningar från den 24e April 2024 för att utforska hur borttagning av ...