Transitions in High-Arctic Vegetation Growth Patterns and Ecosystem Productivity Tracked with Automated Cameras from 2000 to 2013

Overview

Journal Ambio

Date 2017 Jan 25

PMID 28116683

Citations 6

Authors

Andreas Westergaard-Nielsen

Magnus Lund

Stine Hojlund Pedersen

Niels Martin Schmidt

Stephen Klosterman

Jakob Abermann

Birger Ulf Hansen

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Climate-induced changes in vegetation phenology at northern latitudes are still poorly understood. Continued monitoring and research are therefore needed to improve the understanding of abiotic drivers. Here we used 14 years of time lapse imagery and climate data from high-Arctic Northeast Greenland to assess the seasonal response of a dwarf shrub heath, grassland, and fen, to inter-annual variation in snow-cover, soil moisture, and air and soil temperatures. A late snow melt and start of growing season is counterbalanced by a fast greenup and a tendency to higher peak greenness values. Snow water equivalents and soil moisture explained up to 77 % of growing season duration and senescence phase, highlighting that water availability is a prominent driver in the heath site, rather than temperatures. We found a significant advance in the start of spring by 10 days and in the end of fall by 11 days, resulting in an unchanged growing season length. Vegetation greenness, derived from the imagery, was correlated to primary productivity, showing that the imagery holds valuable information on vegetation productivity.

Citing Articles

Vegetation type is an important predictor of the arctic summer land surface energy budget.

Oehri J, Schaepman-Strub G, Kim J, Grysko R, Kropp H, Grunberg I Nat Commun. 2022; 13(1):6379.

PMID: 36316310 PMC: 9622844. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34049-3.

Calizza E, Salvatori R, Rossi D, Pasquali V, Careddu G, Caputi S Sci Rep. 2022; 12(1):2125.

PMID: 35136177 PMC: 8825857. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-06136-4.

The Change in Environmental Variables Linked to Climate Change Has a Stronger Effect on Aboveground Net Primary Productivity Than Does Phenological Change in Alpine Grasslands.

Wang J, Li M, Yu C, Fu G Front Plant Sci. 2022; 12:798633.

PMID: 35058958 PMC: 8763838. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2021.798633.

Later springs green-up faster: the relation between onset and completion of green-up in deciduous forests of North America.

Klosterman S, Hufkens K, Richardson A Int J Biometeorol. 2018; 62(9):1645-1655.

PMID: 29855702 DOI: 10.1007/s00484-018-1564-9.

Advancing the match-mismatch framework for large herbivores in the Arctic: Evaluating the evidence for a trophic mismatch in caribou.

Gustine D, Barboza P, Adams L, Griffith B, Cameron R, Whitten K PLoS One. 2017; 12(2):e0171807.

PMID: 28231256 PMC: 5322966. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171807.

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