Climate-driven dynamics of the forest-tundra vegetation in the Polar Ural Mountains

The paper presents the results of long-term studies of the effect of climate changes on the structure, productivity, and spatial distribution of forest-tundra communities growing in the upper treeline ecotone on the east-facing macroslope of the Polar Ural Mountains, in the Sob' River basin. The study reveals variations in the stand age structure, density, productivity, and the altitude of the upper line of larch open forests and closed forests over the last 1000 years. These results were compared to long-term variations in summer temperature reconstructed using tree-ring analysis. Spatiotemporal dynamics of the forest-tundra communities was analyzed in detail in relation to the 20th century climate warming.