Timing is everything: seasonality and phenological dynamics linking species, communities, and trophic feedbacks in the Low- vs. High Arctic

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助的。对北极气候和季节性变化的生态后果进行广泛调查，对于提高我们对北极作为一个系统的理解至关重要。然而，在缺乏对相互关联的生物成分的这种变化的反应的研究的情况下，我们将继续无法理解这一点。这是一项对北极低、高两个快速变暖地区季节性变化的生态反应的全面调查，以满足这一需求。这项工作将季节性变化与物种的物候动态联系起来，将物种动态与群落的物候动态联系起来，将群落动态与营养水平上的物种相互作用联系起来。与全球气候变化相关的非生物变化正在北极迅速发生，记录它们的速度、幅度和空间变化受到了前所未有的关注。对观察到的这种非生物变化的生物和生态后果的记录相对较少受到关注，但最常见的观察之一是植物物种和功能群对变暖的不同反应。这些观察表明，群落和物种间的变暖后果可能是整个北极地区对变暖的生态反应的一个共同方面。这项工作将比较植物物种内部和之间、植物和食草动物(驯鹿和麝香)之间的营养水平以及低北极和高北极之间的空间和时间对季节性变化的生态反应速度。这项研究将综合并继续收集来自格陵兰岛西部的Kangerlussuaq和格陵兰东北部的Zackenberg的长期、空间复制的数据，以解决北极地区对季节性变化的生态反应的四个方面：i.北极地区对季节性变化的响应的物候变化速率在不同植物物种之间以及在低北极和高北极之间是如何变化的？ii.食草动物活动的时间如何响应随时间和空间以及低和高北极之间的季节性变化？iii.季节变化如何改变植物物候和草食动物之间的相互作用？IV.所观察到的变化的大尺度和近距离驱动因素是什么？它们在低北极和高北极之间有区别吗？这个团队将使用来自Kangerlussuaq的31种植物物候动态的8年空间复制数据和Zackenberg 6种植物物候动态的13年空间复制数据，此外还将使用Kangerlussuaq和Muskoxen驯鹿8年和13年的每日和每周观测。

AbstractThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Broad-scale investigations of the ecological consequences of changing climate and seasonality in the Arctic are imperative to improving our understanding the Arctic as a system. This understanding will, however, continue to elude us in the absence of studies of the responses to such changes of inter-connected biological components. This is a comprehensive investigation of ecological responses to changing seasonality at two rapidly warming sites in the Low- and High Arctic to address this need. This work links changing seasonality with the phenological dynamics of species, species dynamics with the phenological dynamics of communities, and community dynamics with species interactions across trophic levels. Abiotic changes associated with global climate change are occurring rapidly in the Arctic, and documentation of their rates, magnitudes, and spatial variation has received unparalleled focus. The documentation of observed biological and ecological consequences of such abiotic changes has received comparatively less attention, but one of the most common observations has been that of differential responses to warming among plant species and functional groups. These observations suggest that community- and inter-species level consequences of warming may be a common aspect of ecological response to warming throughout the Arctic. This effort will make a comparison of ecological rates of response to changing seasonality within and across plant species, across trophic levels between plants and herbivores (caribou and muskoxen), and through space and time within and between the Low- and High Arctic. This research will synthesize and continue the collection of long-term, spatially replicated data from Kangerlussuaq, West Greenland, and Zackenberg, Northeast Greenland, to address four aspects of ecological response to changing seasonality in the Arctic:I. How do rates of phenological change in response to changing seasonality in the Arctic vary among plant species, and between the Low- and High Arctic?II. How does the timing of herbivore activity respond to changing seasonality through time and space, and between the Low- and High Arctic?III. How does changing seasonality alter reciprocal interactions between the phenology of plants and herbivores?IV. What are the large-scale and proximal drivers of the observed changes, and do they differ between the Low- and High Arctic?This team will use 8 years of spatially-replicated data on the phenological dynamics of 31 plant species from Kangerlussuaq, and 13 years of spatially-replicated data on the phenological dynamics of 6 plant species at Zackenberg, in addition to 8 and 13 years of daily and weekly observations of caribou at Kangerlussuaq and muskoxen at both sites.