Arctic plant study reveals an ‘early warning sign’ of climate change upheaval | Climate crisis

Scientists study North Pole Plants say that the ecological systems that host life in some of the most unending novels of the planet are changing in unexpected ways in the “early warning mark” of an area raised by Climate.

Within four decades, 54 researchers follow more than 2000 vegetable society through 45 Canadian Arctic sites to Alaska and Scandinavian countries. They discovered exciting temperatures and growing seasons that have not produced any clear winners or losers. Some areas have seen large increases in shrubs and herbs and a decline in flowering plants – which struggle to grow under the shadow resulting from the longest plants.

Those results, published in natureFill the main knowledge gaps of the difference on the anterior lines of the changing climate.

“The climate change is widespread throughout the Arctic and we see this size of warming in four times the rate of the rest of the planet. We expected to see very concrete trends and paths. Because in other vital areas, we,” said the main author Mariana Garia Kryado, a post -support researcher in Tundra Biodivisation in Edinburgh. “But the Arctic is a special place and is often unexpected.”

The researchers found a greater richness of species in the latitudes and low warm sites, while the species and regions with larger growth – and loss – were in areas with a temperature increase.

in Canada For example, ISLA MYERS-SMHH and the “Shujira Team” group of researchers have documented the ecosystems that have turned quickly, where the tundra is “green” at an incredible rate like shrubs like Willow Push North and grows longer.

Very competitive shrubs: they grow longer and get out of other plants, and extract more resources in this process. While taking over, they take out CottonGras, algae, and hundreds of hundreds – sometimes thousands of years for growth. High temperatures and prolonged seasons in growth means that this trend is unlikely to abandon it, and on a wider scale across the Arctic, the number and diversity of plants will continue to grow.

“Often when we think about the effects of climate change on the planet, we think about the loss of biological diversity, but in the limited temperature tundra, climate change is multi -faceted,” she said in a press statement.

While an increase in Biological diversity It may seem to be a useful transformation of the area, and experts warn that these changes come at a very slope cost.

“These ecological systems are very fragile and any changes in the formation of species can have strong effects on everything else. Changes begin with plants, and if the plants move, everything follows, as Garcia Credado said, adding that Caribu’s herds were more likely, as the bare spots were in the tundra, preferred by the limits you prefer to eat.

“This has successive effects on the Arctic animals that depend on these plants, as well as food security for all people who live in the Arctic, for local societies and indigenous population, but also to get more ecological system function,”.

Greg Henry, a professor of geography at the University of Columbia, who helped establish a data collection system in the study, said that the research included thousands of hours of field work in remote sites, with teams “severe weather, clouds of powerful insects and even the cross -borear bear meeting.”

But the researchers did not have enough data to include algae and kettles in the study. This Cryptogams is necessary for the function of the ecosystem, especially in the Arctic, where there is a rich diversity in species.

Garcia Kryado said that the results emphasize the deep uncertainty in understanding the effects of climate change on life – and the way the Arctic is a harbinger of the upcoming changes.

She said: “All these changes that we notice are not limited to the Arctic. We may see them in the Arctic, but the consequences spread beyond the borders of the region.” “We want to understand these changes. Then we need to prepare for these changes. It is not a matter of whether it may occur – it’s a matter of when.”