Is subarctic forest advance able to keep pace with climate change?

Show simple item record

dc.creator Rees, W. Gareth
dc.creator Hofgaard, Annika
dc.creator Boudreau, Stéphane
dc.creator Cairns, David M.
dc.creator Harper, Karen A., 1969-
dc.creator Mamet, Steven
dc.creator Mathisen, Ingrid
dc.creator Swirad, Zuzanna
dc.creator Tutubalina, Olga
dc.date.accessioned 2021-08-26T16:39:53Z
dc.date.available 2021-08-26T16:39:53Z
dc.date.issued 2020-07
dc.identifier.issn 1354-1013
dc.identifier.uri http://library2.smu.ca/xmlui/handle/01/29812
dc.description Published Version en_CA
dc.description.abstract Recent climate warming and scenarios for further warming have led to expectations of rapid movement of ecological boundaries. Here we focus on the circumarctic forest&ndash;tundra ecotone (FTE), which represents an important bioclimatic zone with feedbacks from forest advance and corresponding tundra disappearance (up to 50% loss predicted this century) driving widespread ecological and climatic changes. We address FTE advance and climate history relations over the 20th century, using FTE response data from 151 sites across the circumarctic area and site-specific climate data. Specifically, we investigate spatial uniformity of FTE advance, statistical asso ciations with 20th century climate trends, and whether advance rates match climate change velocities (CCVs). Study sites diverged into four regions (Eastern Canada; Central and Western Canada and Alaska; Siberia; and Western Eurasia) based on their climate history, although all were characterized by similar qualitative patterns of behaviour (with about half of the sites showing advancing behaviour). The main associations between climate trend variables and behaviour indicate the importance of precipitation rather than temperature for both qualitative and quantitative behav iours, and the importance of non-growing season as well as growing season months. Poleward latitudinal advance rates differed significantly among regions, being small est in Eastern Canada (~10 m/year) and largest in Western Eurasia (~100 m/year). These rates were 1&ndash;2 orders of magnitude smaller than expected if vegetation dis tribution remained in equilibrium with climate. The many biotic and abiotic factors influencing FTE behaviour make poleward advance rates matching predicted 21st century CCVs (~10<sup>3</sup>&ndash;10<sup>4</sup> m/year) unlikely. The lack of empirical evidence for swift forest relocation and the discrepancy between CCV and FTE response contradict equilibrium model-based assumptions and warrant caution when assessing global change-related biotic and abiotic implications, including land&ndash;atmosphere feedbacks and carbon sequestration. en_CA
dc.description.provenance Submitted by Sherry Briere (sherry.briere@smu.ca) on 2021-08-26T16:39:52Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Harper_Karen_A_article_2020.pdf: 1800774 bytes, checksum: fc1fcf053cae6aa729dcc22d77849b94 (MD5) en
dc.description.provenance Made available in DSpace on 2021-08-26T16:39:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Harper_Karen_A_article_2020.pdf: 1800774 bytes, checksum: fc1fcf053cae6aa729dcc22d77849b94 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2020-03-28 en
dc.language.iso en en_CA
dc.publisher John Wiley & Sons Ltd en_CA
dc.rights <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>.
dc.subject.lcsh Taigas
dc.subject.lcsh Climatic changes
dc.title Is subarctic forest advance able to keep pace with climate change? en_CA
dc.type Text en_CA
dcterms.bibliographicCitation Global Change Biology 26, 3965–3977. (2020) en_CA
 Find Full text

Files in this item


 

Copyright statement:

 
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
 
 

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record

Search DSpace


Browse

My Account