Shrub expansion at the forest–tundra ecotone: spatial heterogeneity linked to local topography

By Pascale Ropars, S. Boudreau. 2012

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent densification of shrub cover is now documented in many Arctic regions. However, most studies focus on global scale responses, yielding very little information on the local patterns. This research aims to quantify shrub cover increase at northern treeline (Québec, Canada) in two important types of environment, sandy terraces and hilltops (which cover about 70% of the landscape), and to identify the species involved. The comparison of a mosaic of two aerial photographs from 1957 (137 km2) and one satellite image taken in 2008 (151 km2) revealed that both hilltops and terraces recorded an increase in shrub cover. However, the increase was significantly greater on terraces than on hilltops (21.6% versus 11.6%). According to ground truthing, the shrub cover densification is associated mainly with an increase of Betula glandulosa Michx. The numerous seedlings observed during the ground truthing suggest that shrub densification should continue in the future.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c5306b3de4a5db1b41da136e2a71e0db3a0f7b35

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In Atmospheric Science

Citations in the corpus

Arctic tundra shrubification: a review of mechanisms and impacts on ecosystem carbon balance (2021, background): “…factors associated with topography that affect shrub growth include snow properties (Boulanger-Lapointe et al 2016), thermokarst in patterned ground (Frost et al 2013, Huebner and Bret-Harte 2019), soil properties, and cryoturbation (Ropars and Boudreau 2012, Frost et al 2014, Swanson 2015).”
Recent expansion of erect shrubs in the Low Arctic: evidence from Eastern Nunavik (2012, background): “In this letter, we quantified land cover change over the last 40 years in Eastern Nunavik (Low Arctic Québec).”