scholarly journals Simulating Alpine Tundra Vegetation Dynamics in Response to Global Warming in China

10.5772/10291 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anderson ◽  
Minghua Song ◽  
Jeffery Welker
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Vegetation Dynamics ◽  
Alpine Tundra ◽  
Tundra Vegetation

scholarly journals Cellular Automata: Simulating Alpine Tundra Vegetation Dynamics in Response to Global Warming

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 256-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanqing A. Zhang ◽  
Michael R. Peterman ◽  
Dorin L. Aun ◽  
Yanming Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Cellular Automata ◽  
Vegetation Dynamics ◽  
Alpine Tundra ◽  
Tundra Vegetation

scholarly journals A Photographic Record of the Upper Headwater Tributaries, Basins and Riparia of the Snake River

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 107-113
Author(s):  
Susan Green ◽  
Dr. Michael Krop
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Snake River ◽  
Glacier Bay ◽  
Tundra Vegetation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Arctic Coast ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
Bear Management

Photographic surveys have been used since the early 1940’s to document coastlines, fuel supplies and river courses. The US Navy, post world war II, flew over the Arctic coast to document possible locations for oil extraction. These very same photos are now being utilized to compare changes in tundra vegetation at the same locations today. John Muirs’ photos of Glacier Bay are a startling testament to the melted glaciers no longer visible from the same vantage point in present times. Taking photographs to monitor change may not tell the entire story behind a change in landscape. However, photos taken over a number of years from the same vantage points, can help monitor landscape changes due to habitat fragmentation, global warming, forest fire, cattle grazing and other land management issues. Photo monitoring is inexpensive, simple and can portray change to many different groups. Of course, photos taken to reveal change must start with documenting current or normal conditions. This is sometimes called baseline monitoring. The park ranger in Glacier National Park did not realize when he took his picture of the Grinnell glacier in 1911 that his photo would become an alarming baseline photo for evidence of global warming. The purpose of this project was to document the Snake River headwater basin and its riparian zones as a document in time for future reference. The original documentation included 48 images of two main headwater areas; the Shoshone and Lewis Lake areas and the Fox Park-Two Ocean Bear Management Areas near the Yellowstone Park border. Since the Shoshone-Lewis lakes are easily assessable and photo space here is limited, I have chosen to only use photos from the more remote areas.

scholarly journals What is the most efficient and effective method for long-term monitoring of alpine tundra vegetation?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 127-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Mamet ◽  
Nathan Young ◽  
Kwok P. Chun ◽  
Jill F. Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Relative Abundance ◽  
Rare Species ◽  
Alpine Tundra ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Vegetation Monitoring ◽  
Tundra Vegetation ◽  
Long Term Monitoring ◽  
Term Monitoring

Nondestructive estimations of plant community characteristics are essential to vegetation monitoring programs. However, there is no universally accepted method for this purpose in the Arctic, partly because not all programs share the same logistical constraints and monitoring goals. Our aim was to determine the most efficient and effective method for long-term monitoring of alpine tundra vegetation. To achieve this, we established 12 vegetation-monitoring plots on a south-facing slope in the alpine tundra of southern Yukon Territory, Canada. Four observers assessed these plots for vascular plant species abundance employing three methods: visual cover (VC) and subplot frequency (SF) estimation and modified point-intercept (PI) (includes rare species present but not intersected by a pin). SF performed best in terms of time required per plot and sensitivity to variations in species richness. All methods were similarly poor at estimating relative abundance for rare species, but PI and VC were substantially better at high abundances. Differences among methods were larger than among observers. Our results suggest that SF is best when the monitoring focus is on rare species or species richness across extensive areas. However, when the focus is on monitoring changes in relative abundance of common species, VC or PI should be preferred.

scholarly journals Topographic Controls on Vegetation Changes in Alpine Tundra of the Changbai Mountains

Forests ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miaomiao Wu ◽  
Hong He ◽  
Shengwei Zong ◽  
Xinyuan Tan ◽  
Haibo Du ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Scale Effects ◽  
Alpine Tundra ◽  
Changbai Mountains ◽  
Vegetation Changes ◽  
Tundra Vegetation ◽  
Topographic Controls ◽  
Low Altitude

The vegetation of alpine tundra is undergoing significant changes and topography has played a significant role in mediating such changes. The roles of topography varied at different scales. In this study, we intended to identify topographic controls on tundra vegetation changes within the Changbai Mountains of Northeast China and reveal the scale effects. We delineated the vegetation changes of the last three decades using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series. We conducted a trend analysis for each pixel to reveal the spatial change and used binary logistic regression models to analyze the relationship between topographic controls at different scales and vegetation changes. Results showed that about 30% of tundra vegetation experienced a significant (p < 0.05) change in the NDVI, with 21.3% attributable to the encroachment of low-altitude plants resulting in a decrease in the NDVI, and 8.7% attributable to the expansion of tundra endemic plants resulting in an increase in the NDVI. Plant encroachment occurred more severely in low altitude than in high altitude, whereas plant expansion mostly occurred near volcanic ash fields at high altitude. We found that plant encroachment tended to occur in complex terrains and the broad-scale mountain aspect had a greater effect on plant encroachment than the fine-scale local aspect. Our results suggest that it is important to include the mountain aspect in mountain vegetation change studies, as most such studies only use the local aspect.

scholarly journals Diets of Overwintering Caribou, Rangifer tarandus, Track Decadal Changes in Arctic Tundra Vegetation

2007 ◽  
Vol 121 (4) ◽  
pp. 379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Joly ◽  
M. Jeanie Cole ◽  
Randi R. Jandt
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Rangifer Tarandus ◽  
Arctic Ecosystems ◽  
Fecal Analysis ◽  
Tundra Vegetation ◽  
Western Arctic ◽  
Winter Diets ◽  
Long Term Studies

We compared winter diets of Western Arctic Herd Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) from 1995/1996 and 2005 using microhistological fecal analysis on samples collected at paired permanent vegetation transects. Changes in the diets of Caribou followed the same trends as vegetative changes documented in long-term studies in northwestern Alaska. Lichens were significantly less prevalent on the landscape and in the winter diets of Caribou between 1995/1996 and 2005, while graminoids (grasses and sedges) were significantly more prevalent. Dramatic changes are forecasted for Arctic ecosystems under global warming scenarios which may continue the trend of declining lichens in northwestern Alaska and in the diet of Western Arctic Herd Caribou. The question of whether or not the altered diet will affect the population dynamics of this herd remains unresolved.

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