scholarly journals The seasonal dynamics of a High Arctic plant - visitor network: temporal observations and responses to delayed snow melt

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. K. Gillespie ◽  
Elisabeth J Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Seasonal Dynamics ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Flowering Phenology ◽  
High Arctic ◽  
Snow Melt ◽  
Insect Activity ◽  
Snow Conditions ◽  
Snow Fences ◽  
Delayed Flowering

Plant - visitor food webs provide important insights into species interactions, and more information about their seasonal dynamics is vital to understanding the resilience of species to external pressures. Studies of Arctic networks can also improve our understanding of species responses to the pressures of climate change. This study provides the first description of a plant – insect visitor network in Svalbard, a High Arctic archipelago already experiencing the consequences of climate change. A subset of the network was collected from experimental plots where the snow melt date was delayed with snow fences. The deep snow plots delayed flowering and we expected this to disrupt plant-visitor interactions compared to ambient snow conditions. However, the composition of flowers and insect visitors were similar between regimes, and the network tracked patterns of overall flowering phenology. Nevertheless, the deep snow significantly reduced the average overlap between flower availability and insect activity, reducing the probability of an interaction. We suggest that at a landscape scale, Arctic pollinators will benefit from patchy changes to snow melt that maintain heterogeneity in the timing of flowering but changes that increase homogeneity in snowmelt across the landscape may negatively impact some species.

scholarly journals Phenological shifts of native and invasive species under climate change: insights from the Boechera–Lythrum model

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1712) ◽  
pp. 20160032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert I. Colautti ◽  
Jon Ågren ◽  
Jill T. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Rocky Mountain ◽  
Flowering Phenology ◽  
Lythrum Salicaria ◽  
Genetic Constraints ◽  
Floral Phenology ◽  
Phenological Shifts ◽  
Delayed Flowering

Warmer and drier climates have shifted phenologies of many species. However, the magnitude and direction of phenological shifts vary widely among taxa, and it is often unclear when shifts are adaptive or how they affect long-term viability. Here, we model evolution of flowering phenology based on our long-term research of two species exhibiting opposite shifts in floral phenology: Lythrum salicaria , which is invasive in North America, and the sparse Rocky Mountain native Boechera stricta . Genetic constraints are similar in both species, but differences in the timing of environmental conditions that favour growth lead to opposite phenological shifts under climate change. As temperatures increase, selection is predicted to favour earlier flowering in native B. stricta while reducing population viability, even if populations adapt rapidly to changing environmental conditions. By contrast, warming is predicted to favour delayed flowering in both native and introduced L. salicaria populations while increasing long-term viability. Relaxed selection from natural enemies in invasive L. salicaria is predicted to have little effect on flowering time but a large effect on reproductive fitness. Our approach highlights the importance of understanding ecological and genetic constraints to predict the ecological consequences of evolutionary responses to climate change on contemporary timescales. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Human influences on evolution, and the ecological and societal consequences’.

scholarly journals Does Phenological Plasticity Help or Hinder Range Shifts Under Climate Change?

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith A. Zettlemoyer ◽  
Megan L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Flowering Phenology ◽  
Species Traits ◽  
Species Range ◽  
Range Shifts ◽  
Suitable Habitat ◽  
Species Ranges ◽  
Population Spread ◽  
Phenological Shifts

Climate warming is predicted to shift species’ ranges as previously uninhabitable environments just beyond the leading range edges become suitable habitat and trailing range edges become increasingly unsuitable. Understanding which aspects of the environment and species traits mediate these range shifts is critical for understanding species’ possible redistributions under global change, yet we have a limited understanding of the ecological and evolutionary responses underlying population spread or extinction at species’ range edges. Within plant populations, shifts in flowering phenology have been one of the strongest and most consistent responses to climate change, and are likely to play an important role in mediating population dynamics within and beyond species’ ranges. However, the role of phenological shifts, and particularly phenological plasticity, in species’ range shifts remains relatively unstudied. Here, we synthesize literature on phenology, plasticity, and adaptation to suggest ways in which phenological responses to climate may vary across species’ ranges and review the empirical evidence for and against these hypotheses. We then outline how phenological plasticity could facilitate or hinder persistence and potential consequences of phenological plasticity in range expansions, including phenological cues, shifts in correlated traits, altered species interactions, and effects on gene flow. Finally, we suggest future avenues for research, such as characterizing reaction norms for phenology across a species’ range and in beyond-the-range transplant experiments. Given the prevalence and magnitude of phenological shifts, future work should carefully dissect its costs and benefits for population persistence, and incorporate phenological plasticity into models predicting species’ persistence and geographic range shifts under climate change.

scholarly journals The importance of species interactions in eco-evolutionary community dynamics under climate change

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Åkesson ◽  
Alva Curtsdotter ◽  
Anna Eklöf ◽  
Bo Ebenman ◽  
Jon Norberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Community Dynamics ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Temperature Dependent ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
The Impact

AbstractEco-evolutionary dynamics are essential in shaping the biological response of communities to ongoing climate change. Here we develop a spatially explicit eco-evolutionary framework which features more detailed species interactions, integrating evolution and dispersal. We include species interactions within and between trophic levels, and additionally, we incorporate the feature that species’ interspecific competition might change due to increasing temperatures and affect the impact of climate change on ecological communities. Our modeling framework captures previously reported ecological responses to climate change, and also reveals two key results. First, interactions between trophic levels as well as temperature-dependent competition within a trophic level mitigate the negative impact of climate change on biodiversity, emphasizing the importance of understanding biotic interactions in shaping climate change impact. Second, our trait-based perspective reveals a strong positive relationship between the within-community variation in preferred temperatures and the capacity to respond to climate change. Temperature-dependent competition consistently results both in higher trait variation and more responsive communities to altered climatic conditions. Our study demonstrates the importance of species interactions in an eco-evolutionary setting, further expanding our knowledge of the interplay between ecological and evolutionary processes.

scholarly journals Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (12) ◽  
pp. 6681-6689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise M. Farquharson ◽  
Vladimir E. Romanovsky ◽  
William L. Cable ◽  
Donald A. Walker ◽  
Steven V. Kokelj ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Arctic ◽  
Canadian High Arctic

scholarly journals Accelerating future mass loss of Svalbard glaciers from a multi-model ensemble

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Ward J. J. van Pelt ◽  
Thomas V. Schuler ◽  
Veijo A. Pohjola ◽  
Rickard Pettersson
Keyword(s):  
Mass Loss ◽  
Seasonal Pattern ◽  
Marked Change ◽  
Total Pore Volume ◽  
High Arctic ◽  
Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽  
Rcp Scenarios ◽  
Historical Simulation ◽  
Snow Conditions ◽  
Accumulation Area Ratio

Abstract Projected climate warming and wettening will have a major impact on the state of glaciers and seasonal snow in High Arctic regions. Following up on a historical simulation (1957–2018) for Svalbard, we make future projections of glacier climatic mass balance (CMB), snow conditions on glaciers and land, and runoff, under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 emission scenarios for 2019–60. We find that the average CMB for Svalbard glaciers, which was weakly positive during 1957–2018, becomes negative at an accelerating rate during 2019–60 for both RCP scenarios. Modelled mass loss is most pronounced in southern Svalbard, where the equilibrium line altitude is predicted to rise well above the hypsometry peak, leading to the first occurrences of zero accumulation-area ratio already by the 2030s. In parallel with firn line retreat, the total pore volume in snow and firn drops by as much as 70–80% in 2060, compared to 2018. Total refreezing remains largely unchanged, despite a marked change in the seasonal pattern towards increased refreezing in winter. Finally, we find pronounced shortening of the snow season, while combined runoff from glaciers and land more than doubles from 1957–2018 to 2019–60, for both scenarios.

scholarly journals Flowering phenology in alpine grassland strongly responds to shifts in snowmelt but weakly to summer drought

Alpine Botany ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Vorkauf ◽  
Ansgar Kahmen ◽  
Christian Körner ◽  
Erika Hiltbrunner
Keyword(s):  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Flowering Phenology ◽  
Alpine Plants ◽  
Alpine Grassland ◽  
Summer Drought ◽  
Phenological Cycle ◽  
The Alps ◽  
Delayed Flowering ◽  
Photoperiod Sensitive ◽  
Species Specific

AbstractAlpine plants complete their seasonal phenological cycle during two to three snow-free months. Under climate change, snowmelt advances and the risk of summer droughts increases. Yet, photoperiodism may prevent alpine plants from benefiting from an earlier start of the growing season. To identify the drivers of flowering phenology in the seven main species of an alpine grassland, we experimentally shifted the snowmelt date through snow manipulations, and excluded precipitation during summer. With “time-to-event” models, we analysed the beginning of main flowering with respect to temperature sums, time after snowmelt, and calendar day (photoperiod). We identified two phenology types: four species tracking snowmelt dates directly or with a certain lag set by temperature sums, including the dominant sedge Carex curvula, Anthoxanthum alpinum Helictotrichon versicolor, and Trifolium alpinum, and three species tracking photoperiod: Geum montanum, Leontodon helveticus and Potentilla aurea. Photoperiodism did not act as daylength threshold but rather modulated the thermal sums at flowering. Hence, photoperiod delayed flowering after earlier snowmelt. The grass A. alpinum was the only one of seven species that clearly responded to drought by earlier and longer flowering. The remarkably high importance of snowmelt dates for both phenology types suggests an earlier onset of flowering in a warmer climate, particularly for non-photoperiod-sensitive species, with an increasing risk for freezing damages and potential disruptions of biotic interactions in the most frequent type of alpine grassland across the Alps. Consequentially, the distinct microclimate and species-specific responses to photoperiod challenge temperature-only based projections of climate warming effects on alpine plant species.

Glaciohydrology of the Himalaya-Karakoram

Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. eabf3668
Author(s):  
Mohd. Farooq Azam ◽  
Jeffrey S. Kargel ◽  
Joseph M. Shea ◽  
Santosh Nepal ◽  
Umesh K. Haritashya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Snow Melt ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
Critical Knowledge ◽  
Glacier Melt ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources Management ◽  
The Himalaya ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources

Understanding the response of Himalayan-Karakoram (HK) rivers to climate change is crucial for ~1 billion people who partly depend on these water resources. Policymakers tasked with the sustainable water resources management for agriculture, hydropower, drinking, sanitation, and hazards require an assessment of rivers’ current status and potential future changes. This review demonstrates that glacier and snow melt are important components of HK rivers, with greater hydrological importance for the Indus than Ganges and Brahmaputra basins. Total river runoff, glacier melt, and seasonality of flow are projected to increase until the 2050s, with some exceptions and large uncertainties. Critical knowledge gaps severely affect modeled contributions of different runoff components, future runoff volumes and seasonality. Therefore, comprehensive field- and remote sensing-based methods and models are needed.

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