Impact of climate warming on Arctic plant diversity: phylogenetic diversity unravels opposing shrub responses in a warming tundra

• Main Author: Scharn, Ruud
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Oroarctic; Tundra; long-term warming; soil moisture; vegetation change; shrubification; biodiversity; phylogenetic diversity; plant community structure; albedo; Arctic biodiversity; Climate change; Northern Sweden; permafrost
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2077/73667

The Arctic biome is at significant risk, with recent observations suggesting that climate change is warming the Arctic nearly four times faster than the global average. Last decade, evidence from experimental warming studies and observations of ambient warming over time shows how increasing air temperature in the Arctic has led to changes to arctic vegetation, and encroachment of trees and shrubs into the tundra. Thus, this amplified Arctic warming is threatening biodiversity, changing vegetation patterns, and thawing permafrost with implications for carbon and nutrient dynamics. These are one of the main concerns of observed plant biodiversity changes (except the loss of biodiversity itself) as they feedback on the global climate through their effects on carbon cycling, albedo, and ecosystem energy balance. Studies of Arctic biodiversity have reported responses in either taxonomic, functional, or phylogenetic diversity, though phylogenetic has so far been understudied in the Arctic. These different measures of quantifying biodiversity will vary in their explanatory value and can have complementary value when looking at the implications of vegetation changes. The overall aim of this thesis is to deepen the knowledge of the effect of ambient and experimental climate warming on taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic aspects of plant diversity within and between communities. In Latnjajaure (northern Sweden) I used a long-term passive warming experiment using open-top chambers, which include five distinct plant communities. The communities had distinct soil moisture conditions, leading to community-specific responses of the plant growth forms (deciduous shrubs, evergreen shrubs, forbs, and graminoids) and phylogenetic dissimilarity. Moist communities tended to decrease in soil moisture, which drove similarity to dryer, more nutrient-poor communities. Warming significantly affected growth forms, but the direction of the response was not consistent across the communities. Evidence of shrub expansion was found in ...