Rapid climate change is upending plant communities in the Arctic, with species flourishing in some areas and declining in others, according to a new study in Nature.

The decades-long investigation, led by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, compiled data from 1981 to 2022 on more than 2,000 plant communities across the Arctic tundra. Analysis revealed shifting patterns in plant species composition, abundance and growth during a period of unprecedented change.

Researchers use a point frame while surveying plant species on Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island in the Canadian Arctic. Photo courtesy of Jeff Kerby.

Sarah Elmendorf, an INSTAAR faculty fellow and research associate in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, was a coauthor on the paper. She stressed the outsized importance of Arctic environments to both people and life on Earth.

“The Arctic holds a huge amount of the world’s carbon,” she said. “It also has resources that are used by animals and people, and a vast amount of biodiversity that isn’t found anywhere else.”

According to Elmendorf, a better understanding of Arctic plant community’s responses to climate change could help us conserve them down the line.

“If we understand how biodiversity is changing over time, and the relationship to climate change, we can understand how it might change in the future,” she said.

The Nature paper identified a few key trends. In many areas shrubs and grasses are proliferating and shading out fragile flowering plants. The result is an overall decrease in plant diversity at these sites. 

Interestingly, the researchers found evidence against a oft-cited hypothesis—that climate change would cause Arctic plant communities to become more similar to each other. 

“In fact, they’re changing in all sorts of directions. It’s a little less cut and dry,” Elmendorf said. 

Though Arctic plant communities aren’t becoming more homogenous, yet at least, Elmendorf warns against seeing this with rose-tinted glasses. In totality, the analysis revealed widespread change. And, according to the authors, these vegetation changes can be an early warning signal for ecosystem-level changes with knock-on effects for animals, humans and the planet’s natural carbon storage systems.

“Often when we think about climate change impacts on the planet we think about biodiversity loss, but in the temperature-limited tundra, climate change is multi-faceted,” said Isla Myers-Smith a coauthor on the Nature paper and professor at the Universities of Edinburgh and British Columbia. “Taken together, our study indicates that biodiversity can follow diverging trajectories in the rapidly warming Arctic.”

Rhona Crawford is the PR & Media Manager for the University of Edinburgh

If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.