Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western Alaska
The Arctic is warming at over twice the rate of the rest of the Earth, resulting in significant changes in vegetation seasonality that regulates annual carbon, water, and energy fluxes. However, a crucial knowledge gap exists regarding the intricate interplay among climate, permafrost, and vegetatio...
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IOP Publishing
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research: Ecology |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-664X/ad9eb8 |
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| author | Dedi Yang Wouter Hantson Daniel J Hayes Jin Wu Shawn P Serbin |
| author_facet | Dedi Yang Wouter Hantson Daniel J Hayes Jin Wu Shawn P Serbin |
| author_sort | Dedi Yang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The Arctic is warming at over twice the rate of the rest of the Earth, resulting in significant changes in vegetation seasonality that regulates annual carbon, water, and energy fluxes. However, a crucial knowledge gap exists regarding the intricate interplay among climate, permafrost, and vegetation that generates high phenology variability across extensive tundra landscapes. This oversight has led to significant discrepancies in phenological patterns observed across warming experiments, long-term ecological observations, and satellite and modeling studies, undermining our ability to understand and forecast plant responses to climate change in the Arctic. To address this problem, we assessed plant phenology across three low-Arctic tundra landscapes on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, using a combination of in-situ phenocam observations and high-resolution PlanetScope CubeSat data. We examined the patterns and drivers of phenological diversity across the landscape by (1) quantifying phenological diversity among dominant plant function types (PFTs) and (2) modeling the interrelations between plant phenology and fine-scale landscape features, such as topography, snowmelt, and vegetation. Our findings reveal that both spring and fall phenology varied significantly across Arctic PFTs, accounting for about 25%–44% and 34%–59% of the landscape-scale variation in the start of spring [SOS] and start of fall [SOF], respectively. Deciduous tall shrubs (e.g. alder and willow) had a later SOS (∼7 d behind the mean of other PFTs), but completed leaf expansion (within 2 weeks) considerably faster compared to other PFTs. We modeled the landscape-scale variation in SOS and SOF using Random Forest, which showed that plant phenology can be accurately captured by a suite of variables related to vegetation composition, topographic characteristics, and snowmelt timing (variance explained: 53%–68% for SOS and 59%–82% for SOF). Notably, snowmelt timing was a crucial determinant of SOS, a factor often neglected in most spring phenology models. Our study highlights the impact of fine-scale vegetation composition, snow seasonality, and landscape features on tundra phenological heterogeneity. Improved understanding of such considerable intra-site phenological variability and associated proximate controls across extensive Arctic landscapes offers critical insights for representation of tundra phenology in process models and associated impact assessments with climate change. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-7e2ffa868a2146fdbf1c844ace5dc640 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2752-664X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research: Ecology |
| spelling | doaj-art-7e2ffa868a2146fdbf1c844ace5dc6402025-08-20T02:00:07ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research: Ecology2752-664X2024-01-013404500710.1088/2752-664X/ad9eb8Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western AlaskaDedi Yang0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1705-7823Wouter Hantson1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2882-6897Daniel J Hayes2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3011-7934Jin Wu3https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8991-3970Shawn P Serbin4https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4136-8971Environmental Sciences Division and Climate Change Science Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory , Oak Ridge, TN 37830, United States of AmericaSchool of Forest Resources, University of Maine , Orono, ME 04469, United States of America; WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, WSL , Davos, SwitzerlandSchool of Forest Resources, University of Maine , Orono, ME 04469, United States of AmericaResearch Area of Ecology and Biodiversity, School for Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong , Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of ChinaBiospheric Sciences Laboratory (Code 618), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD, United States of AmericaThe Arctic is warming at over twice the rate of the rest of the Earth, resulting in significant changes in vegetation seasonality that regulates annual carbon, water, and energy fluxes. However, a crucial knowledge gap exists regarding the intricate interplay among climate, permafrost, and vegetation that generates high phenology variability across extensive tundra landscapes. This oversight has led to significant discrepancies in phenological patterns observed across warming experiments, long-term ecological observations, and satellite and modeling studies, undermining our ability to understand and forecast plant responses to climate change in the Arctic. To address this problem, we assessed plant phenology across three low-Arctic tundra landscapes on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, using a combination of in-situ phenocam observations and high-resolution PlanetScope CubeSat data. We examined the patterns and drivers of phenological diversity across the landscape by (1) quantifying phenological diversity among dominant plant function types (PFTs) and (2) modeling the interrelations between plant phenology and fine-scale landscape features, such as topography, snowmelt, and vegetation. Our findings reveal that both spring and fall phenology varied significantly across Arctic PFTs, accounting for about 25%–44% and 34%–59% of the landscape-scale variation in the start of spring [SOS] and start of fall [SOF], respectively. Deciduous tall shrubs (e.g. alder and willow) had a later SOS (∼7 d behind the mean of other PFTs), but completed leaf expansion (within 2 weeks) considerably faster compared to other PFTs. We modeled the landscape-scale variation in SOS and SOF using Random Forest, which showed that plant phenology can be accurately captured by a suite of variables related to vegetation composition, topographic characteristics, and snowmelt timing (variance explained: 53%–68% for SOS and 59%–82% for SOF). Notably, snowmelt timing was a crucial determinant of SOS, a factor often neglected in most spring phenology models. Our study highlights the impact of fine-scale vegetation composition, snow seasonality, and landscape features on tundra phenological heterogeneity. Improved understanding of such considerable intra-site phenological variability and associated proximate controls across extensive Arctic landscapes offers critical insights for representation of tundra phenology in process models and associated impact assessments with climate change.https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-664X/ad9eb8Arcticphenologyphenocamplanetscopescalingsnow effects |
| spellingShingle | Dedi Yang Wouter Hantson Daniel J Hayes Jin Wu Shawn P Serbin Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western Alaska Environmental Research: Ecology Arctic phenology phenocam planetscope scaling snow effects |
| title | Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western Alaska |
| title_full | Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western Alaska |
| title_fullStr | Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western Alaska |
| title_full_unstemmed | Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western Alaska |
| title_short | Fine-scale landscape characteristics, vegetation composition, and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low-Arctic tundra landscapes in Western Alaska |
| title_sort | fine scale landscape characteristics vegetation composition and snowmelt timing control phenological heterogeneity across low arctic tundra landscapes in western alaska |
| topic | Arctic phenology phenocam planetscope scaling snow effects |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-664X/ad9eb8 |
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