Arid
DOI10.1111/1365-2664.12603
Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem
Becker, Michael S.1,2; Pollard, Wayne H.1
通讯作者Becker, Michael S.
来源期刊JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
ISSN0021-8901
EISSN1365-2664
出版年2016
卷号53期号:3页码:876-884
英文摘要

1. The high Arctic is the world’s fasting warming biome, allowing access to sections of previously inaccessible land for resource extraction. Starting in 2011, exploration of one of the Earth’s largest undeveloped coal seams was initiated in a relatively pristine, polar desert environment in the Canadian high Arctic. Due to the relative lack of historic anthropogenic disturbance, significant gaps in knowledge exist on how the landscape will be impacted by development.


2. At an abandoned airstrip located near the area of current exploration, we used a disturbance case-control approach to evaluate the long-term ecological consequences of high Arctic infrastructure disturbance to vegetation and sensitive, ice-rich permafrost. We quantified: (i) long-term effects on vegetation diversity, soil nutrients and abiotic ground conditions and (ii) the alteration of the ground surface topography and legacy of subsurface thermal changes.


3. We found that in over 60 years since abandonment, the disturbed landscape has not recovered to initial conditions but instead reflects a disturbance-initiated succession towards a different stable-state community.


4. Microtopography greatly influenced recovery patterns in the landscape. The terrain overlaying buried ice (ice-wedge polygon troughs) was the most sensitive to disturbance and had a different species composition, decreased plot-level species richness, significant increases in vegetation cover and a drastically reduced seasonal fluctuation in subsurface temperatures. In contrast, disturbed polygon tops showed resiliency in vegetation recovery, but still had remarkable increases in depth of seasonal soil thaw (active layer).


5. Synthesis and applications. Our results indicate that disturbance effects differ depending on microtopographic features, leading to an increased patchiness of the landscape as found elsewhere in the Arctic. Managers who wish to lessen their impact on high Arctic environments should avoid areas of sensitive, ice-rich permafrost, constrain the geographic scale of near-surface ground disturbance, limit vegetation removal where possible and reseed disturbed areas with native species.


英文关键词biodiversity climate change disturbance ground temperature ice wedges infrastructure permafrost polar desert species richness thermokarst
类型Article
语种英语
国家Canada ; Denmark
收录类别SCI-E
WOS记录号WOS:000380065400027
WOS关键词NORTHWEST TERRITORIES ; CLIMATE-CHANGE ; VEGETATION ; TUNDRA ; PATTERNS ; DISTURBANCE ; REVEGETATION ; RESOURCE ; RECOVERY ; WETLANDS
WOS类目Biodiversity Conservation ; Ecology
WOS研究方向Biodiversity & Conservation ; Environmental Sciences & Ecology
资源类型期刊论文
条目标识符http://119.78.100.177/qdio/handle/2XILL650/193997
作者单位1.McGill Univ, Dept Geog, 805 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal, PQ H3A 0B9, Canada;
2.Univ Copenhagen, Nat Hist Museum Denmark, Ctr Macroecol Evolut & Climate, Univ Pk 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
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GB/T 7714
Becker, Michael S.,Pollard, Wayne H.. Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem[J],2016,53(3):876-884.
APA Becker, Michael S.,&Pollard, Wayne H..(2016).Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem.JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY,53(3),876-884.
MLA Becker, Michael S.,et al."Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem".JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY 53.3(2016):876-884.
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