Despite the importance of high-latitude surface energy budgets for land-climate interactions in the rapidly changing Arctic, uncertainties in their prediction persist.
Continue reading Vegetation regulates energy exchange in the arctic
Climate change is expected to cause (sub)arctic plant species to move polewards to track their climatic niche. However, rapid migration requires recruitment from seed, which is rare in arctic regions where most plants reproduce vegetatively. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Milbau et al. examined whether recruitment from seed would improve under warmer and more fertile future conditions. They found that seedling establishment was barely affected by warming and fertilization, suggesting that (sub)arctic species may experience difficulties in tracking their climatic niche. Predictions of future species’ distributions in arctic regions based solely on abiotic factors may therefore overestimate...
Continue reading Effects of warming and N addition on seedling establishment in tundra
Species richness and effective number of species decreased under experimental warming in meadow environments.
Continue reading Responses of lichen communities to 18 years of natural and experimental warming
It seems we can expect the Arctic to go green in future years – but that won’t be good news for species threatened by Climate Change.
Continue reading Skating on thin ice..?
Small and peripheral populations often contain low levels of genetic variation. This may limit their ability to adapt to environmental change, including climate warming. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Birkeland and colleagues show that many rare and threatened plant species in the High Arctic archipelago Svalbard harbour low levels of genetic variation. Most of them are probably relicts from the early Holocene warmer period. They have likely experienced strong genetic founder/bottleneck effects due to climatic limitations. Even though temperatures now are rising, it is highly uncertain whether this will be beneficial for these warmth-demanding species.
Continue reading Plant conservation genetics in an Arctic archipelago
If we hope kelp is going to mitigate climate change, then we might need to think again about over-fishing and kelp harvesting.
Continue reading Can kelp help halt human hubris?
The genetic characteristics of species impact their capacity to maintain populations and colonize new areas, and the presence of genetic diversity is especially important for plant populations in highly stochastic environments like the Arctic. Purple saxifrage, Saxifraga oppositifolia, is a circumpolar, ecologically and morphologically variable species with a wide range of habitats. Although not endangered at the moment, climate change, the potential warming or drying of northern areas, and increased UV radiation could become a threat in the future. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Pietiläinen and Korpelainen used DNA markers and sequencing to investigate patterns of genetic...
Continue reading Population genetics of purple saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia L.) in the high Arctic archipelago of Svalbard
Whilst forests – aided and abetted by cryptogams (see my previous post) – have a major role as biotic carbon sinks on land, in the oceans that role is largely down to the activity of cryptogamous phytoplankton, which ‘draw-down’ vast amounts of CO2 during photosynthesis. However – and unlike trees – much of that aquatic primary productivity is consumed by herbivores, which in turn are preyed upon by various levels of carnivores. Ultimately, a lot of the CO2 that is fixed is released quite soon thereafter in respiration. Which is why attempts to consign such fixed carbon that is retained...
Continue reading That sinking feeling…June 16th is the date upon which certain individuals around the world celebrate Irish writer James Joyce’s 1904-set literary classic Ulysses. Termed Bloom’s Day – after Leopold Bloom, the famously impenetrable novel’s main character, whose Dublin comings-and-goings are minutely catalogued over a 24-hour period – this is only a day-long phenomenon. A recently discovered bloom of another – phytoplankton – kind, and which lasts far longer than one day, is reported by Kevin Arrigo et al. But such blooms – a ‘rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae… in an aquatic system’ – are common enough, and the well-documented,...
Continue reading Rejoice, ‘tis the real Bloom’s Day (to be sure…)Botany One is a blog run by the Annals of Botany Company, a non-profit educational charity.
In addition to Botany One, the company currently publishes three journals, the Annals of Botany, AoB PLANTS, and in silico Plants.
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