Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem
The high Arctic is the world's fasting warming biome, allowing access to sections of previously inaccessible land for resource extraction. Starting in 2011, exploration of one of the Earth's largest undeveloped coal seams was initiated in a relatively pristine, polar desert environment in...
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k |
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:50|dedup_wf_001::8630c7b758ed2c63bcdd013309179244 2023-05-15T14:37:37+02:00 Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem Becker, Michael S. Pollard, Wayne H. 2015-01-01 https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k undefined unknown Dryad Digital Repository https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k lic_creative-commons 10.5061/dryad.t0k5k oai:easy.dans.knaw.nl:easy-dataset:91961 oai:services.nod.dans.knaw.nl:Products/dans:oai:easy.dans.knaw.nl:easy-dataset:91961 10|openaire____::081b82f96300b6a6e3d282bad31cb6e2 re3data_____::r3d100000044 10|re3data_____::84e123776089ce3c7a33db98d9cd15a8 10|openaire____::9e3be59865b2c1c335d32dae2fe7b254 10|re3data_____::94816e6421eeb072e7742ce6a9decc5f 10|eurocrisdris::fe4903425d9040f680d8610d9079ea14 biodiversity disturbance ice wedges infrastructure permafrost polar desert species richness thermokarst ground temperature climate change Arctic High Arctic Ellesmere Island Nunavut Life sciences medicine and health care geo envir Dataset https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_ddb1/ 2015 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k 2023-01-22T16:50:44Z The high Arctic is the world's fasting warming biome, allowing access to sections of previously inaccessible land for resource extraction. Starting in 2011, exploration of one of the Earth's largest undeveloped coal seams was initiated in a relatively pristine, polar desert environment in the Canadian high Arctic. Due to the relative lack of historic anthropogenic disturbance, significant gaps in knowledge exist on how the landscape will be impacted by development. At an abandoned airstrip located near the area of current exploration, we used a disturbance case–control approach to evaluate the long-term ecological consequences of high Arctic infrastructure disturbance to vegetation and sensitive, ice-rich permafrost. We quantified: (i) long-term effects on vegetation diversity, soil nutrients, and abiotic ground conditions and (ii) the alteration of the ground surface topography and legacy of subsurface thermal changes. We found that in over sixty years since abandonment, the disturbed landscape has not recovered to initial conditions but instead reflects a disturbance-initiated succession towards a different stable-state community. Microtopography greatly influenced recovery patterns in the landscape. The terrain overlaying buried ice (ice wedge polygon troughs) was the most sensitive to disturbance and had a different species composition, decreased plot-level species richness, significant increases in vegetation cover, and a drastically reduced seasonal fluctuation in subsurface temperatures. In contrast, disturbed polygon tops showed resiliency in vegetation recovery, but still had remarkable increases of depth of seasonal soil thaw (active layer). Synthesis and applications. Our results indicate that disturbance effects differ depending on microtopographic features, leading to an increased patchiness of the landscape as found elsewhere in the Arctic. Managers who wish to lessen their impact on high Arctic environments should avoid areas of sensitive, ice-rich permafrost, constrain the geographic scale of ... Dataset Arctic Climate change Ellesmere Island Ice Nunavut permafrost polar desert Thermokarst wedge* Unknown Arctic Nunavut Ellesmere Island |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Unknown |
op_collection_id |
fttriple |
language |
unknown |
topic |
biodiversity disturbance ice wedges infrastructure permafrost polar desert species richness thermokarst ground temperature climate change Arctic High Arctic Ellesmere Island Nunavut Life sciences medicine and health care geo envir |
spellingShingle |
biodiversity disturbance ice wedges infrastructure permafrost polar desert species richness thermokarst ground temperature climate change Arctic High Arctic Ellesmere Island Nunavut Life sciences medicine and health care geo envir Becker, Michael S. Pollard, Wayne H. Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem |
topic_facet |
biodiversity disturbance ice wedges infrastructure permafrost polar desert species richness thermokarst ground temperature climate change Arctic High Arctic Ellesmere Island Nunavut Life sciences medicine and health care geo envir |
description |
The high Arctic is the world's fasting warming biome, allowing access to sections of previously inaccessible land for resource extraction. Starting in 2011, exploration of one of the Earth's largest undeveloped coal seams was initiated in a relatively pristine, polar desert environment in the Canadian high Arctic. Due to the relative lack of historic anthropogenic disturbance, significant gaps in knowledge exist on how the landscape will be impacted by development. At an abandoned airstrip located near the area of current exploration, we used a disturbance case–control approach to evaluate the long-term ecological consequences of high Arctic infrastructure disturbance to vegetation and sensitive, ice-rich permafrost. We quantified: (i) long-term effects on vegetation diversity, soil nutrients, and abiotic ground conditions and (ii) the alteration of the ground surface topography and legacy of subsurface thermal changes. We found that in over sixty years since abandonment, the disturbed landscape has not recovered to initial conditions but instead reflects a disturbance-initiated succession towards a different stable-state community. Microtopography greatly influenced recovery patterns in the landscape. The terrain overlaying buried ice (ice wedge polygon troughs) was the most sensitive to disturbance and had a different species composition, decreased plot-level species richness, significant increases in vegetation cover, and a drastically reduced seasonal fluctuation in subsurface temperatures. In contrast, disturbed polygon tops showed resiliency in vegetation recovery, but still had remarkable increases of depth of seasonal soil thaw (active layer). Synthesis and applications. Our results indicate that disturbance effects differ depending on microtopographic features, leading to an increased patchiness of the landscape as found elsewhere in the Arctic. Managers who wish to lessen their impact on high Arctic environments should avoid areas of sensitive, ice-rich permafrost, constrain the geographic scale of ... |
format |
Dataset |
author |
Becker, Michael S. Pollard, Wayne H. |
author_facet |
Becker, Michael S. Pollard, Wayne H. |
author_sort |
Becker, Michael S. |
title |
Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem |
title_short |
Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem |
title_full |
Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem |
title_fullStr |
Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem |
title_full_unstemmed |
Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem |
title_sort |
data from: sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high arctic ecosystem |
publisher |
Dryad Digital Repository |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k |
geographic |
Arctic Nunavut Ellesmere Island |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Nunavut Ellesmere Island |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Ellesmere Island Ice Nunavut permafrost polar desert Thermokarst wedge* |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Ellesmere Island Ice Nunavut permafrost polar desert Thermokarst wedge* |
op_source |
10.5061/dryad.t0k5k oai:easy.dans.knaw.nl:easy-dataset:91961 oai:services.nod.dans.knaw.nl:Products/dans:oai:easy.dans.knaw.nl:easy-dataset:91961 10|openaire____::081b82f96300b6a6e3d282bad31cb6e2 re3data_____::r3d100000044 10|re3data_____::84e123776089ce3c7a33db98d9cd15a8 10|openaire____::9e3be59865b2c1c335d32dae2fe7b254 10|re3data_____::94816e6421eeb072e7742ce6a9decc5f 10|eurocrisdris::fe4903425d9040f680d8610d9079ea14 |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k |
op_rights |
lic_creative-commons |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k |
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1766309839650160640 |