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Herbivory can alter plant stoichiometry generating biogeochemical feedbacks that stabilize or drive transitions between ecosystem states. We report results after 23 years from a grazing experiment in Norway comparing five paired exclosures and grazed plots that were complemented with inclusion of five islands serving as a natural control. We tested the hypothesis that herbivory-driven shifts in plant dominance scale to alter e...
Molecular Footprints of Quaternary Climate Fluctuations in the Circumpolar Tundra Shrub Dwarf BirchNARA Subscribed
The Arctic tundra biome is undergoing rapid shrub expansion (‘shrubification’) in response to anthropogenic climate change. During the previous ~2.6 million years, glacial cycles caused substantial shifts in Arctic vegetation, leading to changes in species' distributions, abundance and connectivity, which have left lasting impacts on the genetic structure of modern populations. Examining how shrubs responded to past climate ch...
Following rapid climate change, tundra plant communities are experiencing extensive compositional shifts. A conservation concern is the potential encroachment of boreal species into the tundra (‘borealisation’). Tundra borealisation has been sporadically reported, but not systematically quantified. Here, we synthesised data from across 32 study areas, spanning 1137 plots and 287 vascular plant species, resurveyed between 1981...
Long-term changes in herbivore community and vegetation impact of wild and domestic herbivores across IcelandNARA Subscribed
Changes in wild and domestic herbivore populations significantly impact extensive grazing systems, particularly in low productive environments, where increasing wild herbivore populations are perceived as a threat to farming. To assess the magnitude of these changes in Iceland, we compiled time series on herbivore populations from 1986 to 2020 and estimated changes in species densities, metabolic biomass, and consumption of pl...
Spatial patterns of phylogenetic and species diversity of Fennoscandian vascular plants in protected areasNARA Subscribed
Protected areas are one of the main strategic means for conserving biodiversity. Yet, the design of protected areas usually neglects phylogenetic diversity, an important diversity measure. In this paper we assess the phylogenetic diversity and species richness of vascular plants in Fennoscandian protected areas. We evaluate how much species richness and phylogenetic diversity is found within and outside protected areas, and th...
Urbanisation and land-cover change affect functional, but not compositional turnover of bird communitiesNARA Subscribed
Land-use and land-cover change strongly affect biodiversity patterns and are assumed to be growing threats in the future. Particularly increasing urbanisation may affect species turnover and functional composition of biological communities. This study aimed to assess the characteristics of land-cover change in a medium-sized urban municipality from 2011 to 2018, and the effects of urbanisation on avian species- and functional...
Subsea pipelines and wells installed to support the oil and gas industry represent some of the most extensive and numerous anthropogenic structures throughout global marine ecosystems. There remains a paucity of information on the habitat value of these structures for fishery target species and, as a result, little understanding of how decommissioning should be conducted to minimise impacts to populations of these economically...
Trophic Structure and Diet of Predatory Teleost Fishes in a Tropical Demersal Shelf EcosystemOA Marine
Predatory fishes are a major component of many tropical fisheries, although little is known about their diet and trophic structure, which can hinder effective management. We used stable isotopes δ 15 N and δ 13 C in conjunction with dietary prey items of five fishes ( Lutjanus sebae , Lethrinus punctulatus , Epinephelus areolatus , Epinephelus multinotatus , and Plectropomus maculatus ) to describe the diet and trophic structu...
Global maps of soil temperatureNARA Subscribed
Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1‐km 2 r...
Effects of human footprint and biophysical factors on the body‐size structure of fished marine speciesNARA Subscribed
Marine fisheries in coastal ecosystems in many areas of the world have historically removed large‐bodied individuals, potentially impairing ecosystem functioning and the long‐term sustainability of fish populations. Reporting on size‐based indicators that link to food‐web structure can contribute to ecosystem‐based management, but the application of these indicators over large (cross‐ecosystem) geographical scales has been lim...
Treelines are expected to expand into alpine ecosystems with global warming, but herbivory may delay this expansion. This study quantifies long-term effects of temporally varying sheep densities on birch recruitment and growth in the treeline ecotone. We examined treeline ecotone successional trajectories and legacy effects in a replicated experimental setup, where enclosures were present for 14 years with three different shee...
Will borealization of Arctic tundra herbivore communities be driven by climate warming or vegetation change?NARA Subscribed
Poleward shifts in species distributions are expected and frequently observed with a warming climate. In Arctic ecosystems, the strong warming trends are associated with increasing greenness and shrubification. Vertebrate herbivores have the potential to limit greening and shrub advance and expansion on the tundra, posing the question of whether changes in herbivore communities could partly mediate the impacts of climate warmi...
Continental‐scale acoustic telemetry and network analysis reveal new insights into stock structureNARA Subscribed
Delineation of population structure (i.e. stocks) is crucial to successfully manage exploited species and to address conservation concerns for threatened species. Fish migration and associated movements are key mechanisms through which discrete populations mix and are thus important determinants of population structure. Detailed information on fish migration and movements is becoming more accessible through advances in telemet...
Marine reserves are a key tool for the conservation of marine biodiversity, yet only ~2.5% of the world's oceans are protected. The integration of marine reserves into connected networks representing all habitats has been encouraged by international agreements, yet the benefits of this design has not been tested empirically. Australia has one of the largest systems of marine reserves, providing a rare opportunity to assess how...
Teatime in the Serengeti: macrodetritivores sustain recalcitrant plant litter decomposition across human-modified tropical savannahsNARA Subscribed
Background and aims Intensification of savannah land-use is predicted to negatively influence soil biodiversity and functioning such as litter decomposition by detritivores. Loss of macrodetritivores, particularly termites, may be problematic in drier savannahs due to the capacity of macrodetritivores to sustain litter decomposition. Here we investigate how human land-use and spatiotemporal rainfall influence the contribution...
SoilTemp: A global database of near‐surface temperatureNARA Subscribed
Current analyses and predictions of spatially explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long‐term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate‐forcing factors that operate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions are overlooked. This is particularly important in relation to...
Cool as a moose: How can browsing counteract climate warming effects across boreal forest ecosystems?NARA Subscribed
Herbivory has potential to modify vegetation responses to climatic changes. However, climate and herbivory also affect each other, and rarely work in isolation from other ecological factors, such as plant–plant competition. Thus, it is challenging to predict the extent to which herbivory can counteract, amplify, or interact with climate impacts on ecosystems. Here, we investigate how moose modify climatic responses of boreal t...
Differential patterns of floristic phylogenetic diversity across a post‐glacial landscapeNARA Subscribed
Aim In this study, we explored spatial patterns of phylogenetic diversity (PD) and endemism in the flora of Norway and tested hypothesized post‐glacial environmental drivers of PD, including temperature, precipitation, edaphic factors and time since glacial retreat. Location Norway. Taxon Vascular plants (Trachaeophyta). Methods We produced a multi‐locus maximum‐likelihood (ML) phylogeny using a combination of newly produced D...
Traditional plant functional groups explain variation in economic but not size‐related traits across the tundra biomeNARA Subscribed
Aim Plant functional groups are widely used in community ecology and earth system modelling to describe trait variation within and across plant communities. However, this approach rests on the assumption that functional groups explain a large proportion of trait variation among species. We test whether four commonly used plant functional groups represent variation in six ecologically important plant traits. Location Tundra bio...
Motivation The Tundra Trait Team (TTT) database includes field‐based measurements of key traits related to plant form and function at multiple sites across the tundra biome. This dataset can be used to address theoretical questions about plant strategy and trade‐offs, trait–environment relationships and environmental filtering, and trait variation across spatial scales, to validate satellite data, and to inform Earth system mo...