My first journal article on how climate change is impacting the flowering and fruiting times in the Arctic has just been published in the new on line, open access journal
Arctic Science. The article is based on weather station and International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) flowering and fruiting time data that Parks Canada has been recording for the past 20 years at Tanquary Fiord, Quttinripaaq National Park. Tanquary Fiord is just a short 1/2hr flight from my field site at Lake Hazen, Quttinirpaaq National Park.
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| Head of Tanquary Fiord looking east from the Twin Otter flight out in August 2013. The orange square is Parks Canada's warden station (enlarged on right) and the green circle is the location of the ITEX site where there are 25 purple saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) and 25 mountain avens (Dryas integrifolia) plants tagged. The number of open flowers and number of mature fruits on these plants have been counted every 3 days every summer for the past 20 years. |
In a nutshell, annual temperatures have been rising over the past 25 years by 1.2C/decade at Tanquary Fiord, the flowering and fruiting times of the early spring flowering purple saxifrage has not significantly changed over the 20 year period but the mid-summer flowering mountain avens is trending towards earlier flowering and fruiting times.
Read a blog post I wrote about my article for Canadian Science Publishing NRC Research Press:
http://www.cdnsciencepub.com/blog/studying-plant-responses-to-climate-change-in-the-arctic.aspx
Read the full article at:
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/as-2015-0016#.VlR8QDddFdg
