Eric Post, Mads C. Forchhammer, M. Syndonia Bret-Harte, Terry V. Callaghan, Torben R. Christensen, Bo Elberling, Anthony D. Fox, Olivier Gilg, David S. Hik, Toke T. Høye, Rolf A. Ims, Erik Jeppesen, David R. Klein, Jesper Madsen, A. David McGuire, Søren Rysgaard, Daniel E. Schindler, Ian Stirling, Mikkel P. Tamstorf, Nicholas J. C. Tyler, Rene van der Wal, Jeffrey Welker, Philip A. Wookey, Niels Martin Schmidt, Peter Aastrup. (2009). Ecological Dynamics Across the Arctic Associated with Recent Climate Change (Vol. 325).
Abstract: At the close of the Fourth International Polar Year, we take stock of the ecological consequences of recent climate change in the Arctic, focusing on effects at population, community, and ecosystem scales. Despite the buffering effect of landscape heterogeneity, Arctic ecosystems and the trophic relationships that structure them have been severely perturbed. These rapid changes may be a bellwether of changes to come at lower latitudes and have the potential to affect ecosystem services related to natural resources, food production, climate regulation, and cultural integrity. We highlight areas of ecological research that deserve priority as the Arctic continues to warm.
Programme: 1036
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Olivier Gilg, Benoît Sittler, Ilkka Hanski. (2009). Climate change and cyclic predator–prey population dynamics in the high Arctic (Vol. 15).
Abstract: The high Arctic has the world's simplest terrestrial vertebrate predator–prey community, with the collared lemming being the single main prey of four predators, the snowy owl, the Arctic fox, the long-tailed skua, and the stoat. Using a 20-year-long time series of population densities for the five species and a dynamic model that has been previously parameterized for northeast Greenland, we analyzed the population and community level consequences of the ongoing and predicted climate change. Species' responses to climate change are complex, because in addition to the direct effects of climate change, which vary depending on species' life histories, species are also affected indirectly due to, e.g., predator–prey interactions. The lemming–predator community exemplifies these complications, yet a robust conclusion emerges from our modeling: in practically all likely scenarios of how climate change may influence the demography of the species, climate change increases the length of the lemming population cycle and decreases the maximum population densities. The latter change in particular is detrimental to the populations of the predators, which are adapted to make use of the years of the greatest prey abundance. Therefore, climate change will indirectly reduce the predators' reproductive success and population densities, and may ultimately lead to local extinction of some of the predator species. Based on these results, we conclude that the recent anomalous observations about lack of cyclic lemming dynamics in eastern Greenland may well be the first signs of a severe impact of climate change on the lemming–predator communities in Greenland and elsewhere in the high Arctic.
Keywords: Alopex lagopus Arctic community climate change cyclic dynamics Dicrostonyx groenlandicus Greenland Mustela erminea Nyctea scandiaca predator–prey interaction Stercorarius longicaudus
Programme: 1036
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Olivier Gilg, Nigel G. Yoccoz. (2010). Explaining Bird Migration (Vol. 327). Bachelor's thesis, , .
Abstract: Arctic shorebirds can travel tens of thousands of kilometers every year as they fly along intercontinental flyways from their southern wintering grounds to their remote, harsh breeding sites. How these birds solve the navigational and physiological constraints has been largely answered, but why they migrate is still a question with many possible answers (1). On page 326 of this issue, McKinnon et al. (2) present a continent-wide study that points to predation as a driving mechanism for migration. The study also elucidates the role of predation in shaping Arctic terrestrial biodiversity. Predation pressure falls with increasing latitude, helping to explain why many birds migrate as far north as the high Arctic. Predation pressure falls with increasing latitude, helping to explain why many birds migrate as far north as the high Arctic.
Programme: 1036
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Martin Bulla, Jeroen Reneerkens, Emily L. Weiser, Aleksandr Sokolov, Audrey R. Taylor, Benoît Sittler, Brian J. McCaffery, Dan R. Ruthrauff, Daniel H. Catlin, David C. Payer, David H. Ward, Diana V. Solovyeva, Eduardo S. A. Santos, Eldar Rakhimberdiev, Erica Nol, Eunbi Kwon, Glen S. Brown, Glenda D. Hevia, H. River Gates, James A. Johnson, Jan A. van Gils, Jannik Hansen, Jean-François Lamarre, Jennie Rausch, Jesse R. Conklin, Joe Liebezeit, Joël Bêty, Johannes Lang, José A. Alves, Juan Fernández-Elipe, Klaus-Michael Exo, Loïc Bollache, Marcelo Bertellotti, Marie-Andrée Giroux, Martijn van de Pol, Matthew Johnson, Megan L. Boldenow, Mihai Valcu, Mikhail Soloviev, Natalya Sokolova, Nathan R. Senner, Nicolas Lecomte, Nicolas Meyer, Niels Martin Schmidt, Olivier Gilg, Paul A. Smith, Paula Machín, Rebecca L. McGuire, Ricardo A. S. Cerboncini, Richard Ottvall, Rob S. A. van Bemmelen, Rose J. Swift, Sarah T. Saalfeld, Sarah E. Jamieson, Stephen Brown, Theunis Piersma, Tomas Albrecht, Verónica D’Amico, Richard B. Lanctot, Bart Kempenaers. (2019). Comment on “Global pattern of nest predation is disrupted by climate change in shorebirds” (Vol. 364).
Abstract: Kubelka et al. (Reports, 9 November 2018, p. 680) claim that climate change has disrupted patterns of nest predation in shorebirds. They report that predation rates have increased since the 1950s, especially in the Arctic. We describe methodological problems with their analyses and argue that there is no solid statistical support for their claims.
Programme: 1036
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Richard, Y. (2012). Détermination du statut parasitaire de trois populations de lemming à collier en relation avec leurs densités.
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Benoît Sittler, Adrian Aebischer, Olivier Gilg. (2011). Post-breeding migration of four Long-tailed Skuas (Stercorarius longicaudus) from North and East Greenland to West Africa (Vol. 152).
Abstract: The Long-tailed Skua (Stercorarius longicaudus) is a specialist predator of lemmings during the summer and hence an important component of the tundra ecosystems, but most of its life cycle takes place offshore and remains largely unknown outside of the breeding season. Using 9.5-g solar-powered satellite transmitters, we were able to document for the first time the post-breeding movements of the Long-tailed Skua, from its high-Arctic breeding-grounds in North and Eastern Greenland to the tropical waters of West Africa. The birds traveled the approximately 10,000 km of this migration in only 3–5 weeks, covering 800–900 km/day during active migration, which also occurred during nighttime. Leaving their breeding areas in August (except for one failed breeder), the Long-tailed Skuas first moved south along the coast of East Greenland towards a staging area off the Canadian Great Banks where they stayed for 1–3 weeks. From there, they crossed the Atlantic Ocean eastwards in just 1 week, entering African waters near the Madeira Archipelago in September. Although only four birds were monitored for 1.5–3 months, the data reveal that the migration routes between birds breeding in different locations and in different years were relatively similar.
Keywords: Greenland Long-tailed Skua Post-breeding migration Rates of travel Satellite tracking Staging area Upwelling
Programme: 1036
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Perroud, Lucie. (2014). Etude des stratégies de soins parentaux des limicoles en région arctique: le cas du bécasseau sanderling (Calidris alba).
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Helena K. Wirta, Eero J. Vesterinen, Peter A. Hambäck, Elisabeth Weingartner, Claus Rasmussen, Jeroen Reneerkens, Niels M. Schmidt, Olivier Gilg, Tomas Roslin. (2015). Exposing the structure of an Arctic food web (Vol. 5).
Abstract: Abstract How food webs are structured has major implications for their stability and dynamics. While poorly studied to date, arctic food webs are commonly assumed to be simple in structure, with few links per species. If this is the case, then different parts of the web may be weakly connected to each other, with populations and species united by only a low number of links. We provide the first highly resolved description of trophic link structure for a large part of a high-arctic food web. For this purpose, we apply a combination of recent techniques to describing the links between three predator guilds (insectivorous birds, spiders, and lepidopteran parasitoids) and their two dominant prey orders (Diptera and Lepidoptera). The resultant web shows a dense link structure and no compartmentalization or modularity across the three predator guilds. Thus, both individual predators and predator guilds tap heavily into the prey community of each other, offering versatile scope for indirect interactions across different parts of the web. The current description of a first but single arctic web may serve as a benchmark toward which to gauge future webs resolved by similar techniques. Targeting an unusual breadth of predator guilds, and relying on techniques with a high resolution, it suggests that species in this web are closely connected. Thus, our findings call for similar explorations of link structure across multiple guilds in both arctic and other webs. From an applied perspective, our description of an arctic web suggests new avenues for understanding how arctic food webs are built and function and of how they respond to current climate change. It suggests that to comprehend the community-level consequences of rapid arctic warming, we should turn from analyses of populations, population pairs, and isolated predator?prey interactions to considering the full set of interacting species.
Keywords: Calidris DNA barcoding generalism Greenland Hymenoptera molecular diet analysis Pardosa Plectrophenax specialism Xysticus
Programme: 1036
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Andreassen P. (2015). A retrospective study of the endoparasitic Helminths present in faeces of Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus) from Northeastern Greenland.
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Jeroen Reneerkens, Niels Martin Schmidt, Olivier Gilg, Jannik Hansen, Lars Holst Hansen, Jérôme Moreau, Theunis Piersma. (2016). Effects of food abundance and early clutch predation on reproductive timing in a high Arctic shorebird exposed to advancements in arthropod abundance (Vol. 6).
Abstract: Climate change may influence the phenology of organisms unequally across trophic levels and thus lead to phenological mismatches between predators and prey. In cases where prey availability peaks before reproducing predators reach maximal prey demand, any negative fitness consequences would selectively favor resynchronization by earlier starts of the reproductive activities of the predators. At a study site in northeast Greenland, over a period of 17 years, the median emergence of the invertebrate prey of Sanderling Calidris alba advanced with 1.27 days per year. Yet, over the same period Sanderling did not advance hatching date. Thus, Sanderlings increasingly hatched after their prey was maximally abundant. Surprisingly, the phenological mismatches did not affect chick growth, but the interaction of the annual width and height of the peak in food abundance did. Chicks grew especially better in years when the food peak was broad. Sanderling clutches were most likely to be depredated early in the season, which should delay reproduction. We propose that high early clutch predation may favor a later reproductive timing. Additionally, our data suggest that in most years food was still abundant after the median date of emergence, which may explain why Sanderlings did not advance breeding along with the advances in arthropod phenology.
Keywords: Bird migration Calidris alba chick growth climate change nest survival phenology timing trophic interactions trophic mismatch
Programme: 1036
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