Arctic greening from warming promotes declines in caribou populations

Science Advances
Per FauchaldVera Helene Hausner

Abstract

The migratory tundra caribou herds in North America follow decadal population cycles, and browsing from abundant caribou could be expected to counteract the current climate-driven expansion of shrubs in the circumpolar tundra biome. We demonstrate that the sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has provided a strong signal for climate-induced changes on the adjacent caribou summer ranges, outperforming other climate indices in explaining the caribou-plant dynamics. We found no evidence of a negative effect of caribou abundance on vegetation biomass. On the contrary, we found a strong bottom-up effect in which a warmer climate related to diminishing sea ice has increased the plant biomass on the summer pastures, along with a paradoxical decline in caribou populations. This result suggests that this climate-induced greening has been accompanied by a deterioration of pasture quality. The shrub expansion in Arctic North America involves plant species with strong antibrowsing defenses. Our results might therefore be an early signal of a climate-driven shift in the caribou-plant interaction from a system with low plant biomass modulated by cyclic caribou populations to a system dominated by nonedible shrubs and diminishing herds of migrat...Continue Reading

Associated Datasets

References

Nov 15, 2002·Nature·Eric Post, Mads C Forchhammer
Sep 22, 2005·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Scott J GoetzR A Houghton
Aug 23, 2008·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Eric Post, Christian Pedersen
Oct 25, 2012·Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America·Leslie A WitterLisa M Poirier
Aug 3, 2013·Science·Eric PostDonald A Walker
May 15, 2015·Global Change Biology·Elina KaarlejärviJohan Olofsson

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Citations

Jun 28, 2017·Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America·Tara J ZaminPaul Grogan
Jul 22, 2017·Global Change Biology·Helen C WheelerJens-Christian Svenning
Sep 27, 2018·Animal : an International Journal of Animal Bioscience·J S ForbeyA M Felton
Dec 17, 2019·Science Advances·Eric PostMuyin Wang
Dec 16, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Agata BuchwalJeffrey M Welker
Apr 7, 2020·Journal of Environmental Management·Da WeiXiaodan Wang

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Software Mentioned

GIMMS
lavaan
MARSS
R

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Cell Migration

Cell migration is involved in a variety of physiological and pathological processes such as embryonic development, cancer metastasis, blood vessel formation and remoulding, tissue regeneration, immune surveillance and inflammation. Here is the latest research.