Decreasing snow cover alters functional composition and diversity of Arctic tundra.

ABSTRACT: The Arctic is one of the least human-impacted parts of the world, but, in turn, tundra biome is facing the most rapid climate change on Earth. These perturbations may cause major reshuffling of Arctic species compositions and functional trait profiles and diversity, thereby affecting ecosystem processes of the whole tundra region. Earlier research has detected important drivers of the change in plant functional traits under warming climate, but studies on one key factor, snow cover, are almost totally lacking. Here we integrate plot-scale vegetation data with detailed climate and snow information using machine learning methods to model the responsiveness of tundra communities to different scenarios of warming and snow cover duration. Our results show that decreasing snow cover, together wi

SUBMITTER: Niittynen P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7474597 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature