Arctic and subarctic ecosystems are experiencing substantial changes in hydrology, vegetation, permafrost conditions, and carbon cycling, in response to climatic change and other anthropogenic drivers, and these changes are likely to continue over this century. The total magnitude of these changes results from multiple interactions among these drivers. Field measurements can address the overall responses to different changing...

The Circumpolar North has been changing rapidly within the last decades, and the socioeconomic systems of the Eurasian Arctic and Siberia in particular have displayed the most dramatic changes. Here, anthropogenic drivers of environmental change such as migration and industrialization are added to climate-induced changes in the natural environment such as permafrost thawing and increased frequency of extreme events. Understand...

Climate change impacts are not uniform across the Arctic region because interacting factors causes large variations in local ecosystem change. Extreme climatic events and population cycles of herbivores occur simultaneously against a background of gradual climate warming trends and can redirect ecosystem change along routes that are difficult to predict. Here, we present the results from sub‐Arctic heath vegetation and its bel...

Little is known about the impact of changing temperature regimes on composition and diversity of cryptogam communities in the A rctic and S ubarctic, despite the well‐known importance of lichens and bryophytes to the functioning and climate feedbacks of northern ecosystems. We investigated changes in diversity and abundance of lichens and bryophytes within long‐term (9–16 years) warming experiments and along natural climatic g...

Ecology Letters (2011) Abstract 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...