Impact of Holocene environmental change on the evolutionary ecology of an Arctic top predator

The Arctic is among the most climatically sensitive environments on Earth, and the disappearance of multiyear sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is predicted within decades. As apex predators, polar bears are sentinel species for addressing the impact of environmental variability on Arctic marine ecosystem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science Advances
Main Authors: Westbury, Michael V., Brown, Stuart C., Lorenzen, Julie, O'Neill, Stuart, Scott, Michael B., McCuaig, Julia, Cheung, Christina, Armstrong, Edward, Valdes, Paul J., Samaniego Castruita, José Alfredo, Cabrera, Andrea A., Blom, Stine Keibel, Dietz, Rune, Sonne, Christian, Louis, Marie, Galatius, Anders, Fordham, Damien A., Ribeiro, Sofia, Szpak, Paul, Lorenzen, Eline D.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Arctic
Arctic Ocean
Greenland
greenlandic
Sea ice
Online Access:https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/publications/impact-of-holocene-environmental-change-on-the-evolutionary-ecology-of-an-arctic-top-predator(ec06eae9-cae6-4db4-a5c4-898ad2ca81b0).html
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf3326
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85176401297&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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Summary:The Arctic is among the most climatically sensitive environments on Earth, and the disappearance of multiyear sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is predicted within decades. As apex predators, polar bears are sentinel species for addressing the impact of environmental variability on Arctic marine ecosystems. By integrating genomics, isotopic analysis, morphometrics, and ecological modeling, we investigate how Holocene environmental changes affected polar bears around Greenland. We uncover reductions in effective population size coinciding with increases in annual mean sea surface temperature, reduction in sea ice cover, declines in suitable habitat, and shifts in suitable habitat northward. Furthermore, we show that west and east Greenlandic polar bears are morphologically, and ecologically distinct, putatively driven by regional biotic and genetic differences. Together, we provide insights into the vulnerability of polar bears to environmental change and how the Arctic marine ecosystem plays a vital role in shaping the evolutionary and ecological trajectories of its inhabitants.

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