The DOI matches its Crossref record; 34 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Climate sensitivity of shrub growth across the tundra biome
Open accessAbstract
Rapid climate warming has been linked to increasing shrub dominance in the Arctic tundra. Research now shows that climate–shrub growth relationships vary spatially and according to site characteristics such as soil moisture and shrub height. Rapid climate warming in the tundra biome has been linked to increasing shrub dominance1,2,3,4. Shrub expansion can modify climate by altering surface albedo, energy and water balance, and permafrost2,5,6,7,8, yet the drivers of shrub growth remain poorly understood. Dendroecological data consisting of multi-decadal time series of annual shrub growth provide an underused resource to explore climate–growth relationships. Here, we analyse circumpolar data from 37 Arctic and alpine sites in 9 countries, including 25 species, and ∼42,000 annual growth records from 1,821 individuals. Our analyses demonstrate that the sensitivity of shrub growth to climate was: (1) heterogeneous, with European sites showing greater summer temperature sensitivity than North American sites, and (2) higher at sites with greater soil moisture and for taller shrubs (for example, alders and willows) growing at their northern or upper elevational range edges. Across latitude, climate sensitivity of growth was greatest at the boundary between the Low and High Arctic, where permafrost is thawing4 and most of the global permafrost soil carbon pool is stored9. The observed variation in climate–shrub growth relationships should be incorporated into Earth system models to improve future projections of climate change impacts across the tundra biome.
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Cites
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Grime, J. P. (1977) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/283244 · Cited by 5,754
Investigating soil moisture–climate interactions in a changing climate: A review
Seneviratne, S. I., Corti, T., Davin, E. L., Hirschi, M., Jaeger, E. B., Lehner, I., Orlowsky, B., & Teuling, A. J. (2010) · Earth-Science Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2010.02.004 · Cited by 5,638
Geographical ecology; patterns in the distribution of species
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Geographical Ecology: Patterns in the Distribution of Species.
Janzen, D. H., van der Meer, J. H., & MacArthur, R. H. (1973) · The Journal of Ecology · doi:10.2307/2259051 · Cited by 1,716
Shrub expansion in tundra ecosystems: dynamics, impacts and research priorities
Myers-Smith, I. H., Forbes, B. C., Wilmking, M., Hallinger, M., Lantz, T., Blok, D., Tape, K. D., Macias-Fauria, M., Sass-Klaassen, U., Lévesque, E., et al. (2011) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/045509 · Cited by 1,485
Self-citationRole of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming
Chapin, F. S., Sturm, M., Serreze, M. C., McFadden, J. P., Key, J. R., Lloyd, A. H., McGuire, A. D., Rupp, T. S., Lynch, A. H., Schimel, J. P., et al. (2005) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1117368 · Cited by 1,361
Self-citationIncreasing shrub abundance in the Arctic
Sturm, M., Racine, C., & Tape, K. (2001) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35079180 · Cited by 1,349
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Keenan, T. F., & Williams, C. A. (2018) · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-030204 · Cited by 423
A raster version of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM)
Raynolds, M. K., Walker, D. A., Balser, A., Bay, C., Campbell, M., Cherosov, M. M., Daniëls, F. J. A., Eidesen, P. B., Ermokhina, K. A., Frost, G. V., et al. (2019) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2019.111297 · Cited by 247
Self-citationStatus and trends in Arctic vegetation: Evidence from experimental warming and long-term monitoring
Bjorkman, A. D., García Criado, M., Myers-Smith, I. H., Ravolainen, V., Jónsdóttir, I. S., Westergaard, K. B., Lawler, J. P., Aronsson, M., Bennett, B., Gardfjell, H., et al. (2020) · Ambio · doi:10.1007/s13280-019-01161-6 · Cited by 230
Self-citationMuskoxen Modify Plant Abundance, Phenology, and Nitrogen Dynamics in a High Arctic Fen
Mosbacher, J. B., Michelsen, A., Stelvig, M., Hjermstad-Sollerud, H., & Schmidt, N. M. (2019) · Ecosystems · doi:10.1007/s10021-018-0323-4 · Cited by 55
Self-citationThe changing face of the Arctic: four decades of greening and implications for tundra ecosystems
Frost, G. V., Bhatt, U. S., Macander, M. J., Berner, L. T., Walker, D. A., Raynolds, M. K., Magnússon, R. Í., Bartsch, A., Bjerke, J. W., Epstein, H. E., et al. (2025) · Frontiers in Environmental Science · doi:10.3389/fenvs.2025.1525574 · Cited by 51
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Metadata
- Authors
- Myers-Smith, I. H., Elmendorf, S. C., Beck, P. S. A., Wilmking, M., Hallinger, M., Blok, D., Tape, K. D., Rayback, S. A., Macias-Fauria, M., Forbes, B. C., Speed, J. D. M., Boulanger-Lapointe, N., Rixen, C., Lévesque, E., Schmidt, N. M., Baittinger, C., Trant, A. J., Hermanutz, L., Collier, L. S., Dawes, M. A., Lantz, T. C., Weijers, S., Jørgensen, R. H., Buchwal, A., Buras, A., Naito, A. T., Ravolainen, V., Schaepman-Strub, G., Wheeler, J. A., Wipf, S., Guay, K. C., Hik, D. S., & Vellend, M.
- Venue
- Nature Climate Change
- Published
- 2015-07-06
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 887-891
- ISSN
- 1758-678X (ISSN-L)
- 1758-6798
- OpenAlex
- W2189645600
- Cited by
- 608
- References
- 34
- FWCI
- 39.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- Myers-Smith, I. H., Elmendorf, S. C., Beck, P. S. A., Wilmking, M., Hallinger, M., Blok, D., Tape, K. D., Rayback, S. A., Macias-Fauria, M., Forbes, B. C., Speed, J. D. M., Boulanger-Lapointe, N., Rixen, C., Lévesque, E., Schmidt, N. M., Baittinger, C., Trant, A. J., Hermanutz, L., Collier, L. S., . . . Vellend, M. (2015). Climate sensitivity of shrub growth across the tundra biome. Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2697
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
