Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 15, Issue 2, Pages 164-175Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01716.x
Keywords
Alpine; Arctic; climate warming; long-term experiment; meta-analysis; plants
Categories
Funding
- U.S. National Science foundation
- Australian Research Council
- Department of Sustainability and Environment
- Parks Victoria
- ArcticNet
- Environment Canada
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Northern Scientific Training Program of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada
- Polar Continental Shelf Program of Natural Resources Canada
- Yukon Territorial Government
- Natural Sciences Division of the Danish Council for Independent Research
- Danish Environmental Protection Agency
- Academy of Finland
- Icelandic Research Fund
- Ministry of Environment of Japan' s
- Darwin Centre for Biogeosciences
- EU
- Norwegian Research Council
- Norwegian Svalbard Society
- Norwegian Polar Institute
- European Commission
- Swedish Research Council for Environment
- Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning
- UK Natural Environment Research Council
- National Geographic Society
- U.S. Forest Service
- NERC [NE/D005833/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/D005833/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Division Of Polar Programs [856516] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Office of Polar Programs (OPP) [0856728] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1026843] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Understanding the sensitivity of tundra vegetation to climate warming is critical to forecasting future biodiversity and vegetation feedbacks to climate. In situ warming experiments accelerate climate change on a small scale to forecast responses of local plant communities. Limitations of this approach include the apparent site-specificity of results and uncertainty about the power of short-term studies to anticipate longer term change. We address these issues with a synthesis of 61 experimental warming studies, of up to 20 years duration, in tundra sites worldwide. The response of plant groups to warming often differed with ambient summer temperature, soil moisture and experimental duration. Shrubs increased with warming only where ambient temperature was high, whereas graminoids increased primarily in the coldest study sites. Linear increases in effect size over time were frequently observed. There was little indication of saturating or accelerating effects, as would be predicted if negative or positive vegetation feedbacks were common. These results indicate that tundra vegetation exhibits strong regional variation in response to warming, and that in vulnerable regions, cumulative effects of long-term warming on tundra vegetation and associated ecosystem consequences have the potential to be much greater than we have observed to date.
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