Plant community response to warming and herbivory on sub-arctic coastal terraces in Western Alaska, 2015 - 2016

To predict future changes in high latitude biomes, it is important to understand how plant communities will respond to increased temperature. Across sub-arctic systems, warming generally increases aboveground biomass in plant communities. Specifically, in arctic graminoid systems, experimental warming has been shown to increase productivity, aboveground biomass and leaf litter production, and stimulate early-season growth. Warming can also decrease species richness, and reduce foliar nitrogen (N) in aboveground biomass over the growing season. Migrating geese are important grazers in arctic and subarctic ecosystems during summer breeding months. Avian herbivores depend on high quality forage (high N) and are often found at high enough densities to impact vegetation communities. Exclosure experiments show that goose herbivory reduces biomass of herbaceous species but increases net above-ground primary production and N concentrations of grazing-tolerant sedges, and sometimes even increases species richness. Goose herbivory also alters plant physiological processes as evidenced by increased N uptake by plants, as well as the biophysical processes that affect N cycling through trampling and fecal deposition. Thus, high-density populations of avian herbivores can have top-down control on their vegetation communities. While increasing global temperatures may increase aboveground biomass and decrease species richness in plant communities, herbivory could potentially mediate, or even reverse, these responses. For example, Post and Pedersen (2008) suggest that herbivory may exacerbate plant response to warming because both effects increase rates of productivity, while simultaneously reducing the effects of warming on aboveground biomass. If the interaction between warming and herbivory causes a shift in plant abundance and community functional groups, this could cascade through the system resulting in changes in nutrient cycling and plant-animal feedbacks. The Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta is one of the largest river deltas in the world and is a globally important breeding area for millions of long-distance migratory waterfowl and shorebird species. The majority of these species nest in high densities close to the ocean among lowland coastal habitat. Geese populations utilize overlapping habitats and shift from more coastal to more interior habitats over the growing season. The expectations for how vegetation responds to increasing temperature and changes in herbivory with climate change will vary for different plant communities. We propose to conduct an experiment that investigates the impact of warming and herbivory on three coastal sub-arctic vegetation communities in the Y-K Delta addressing the following questions: 1) How does warming impact vegetation biomass and community composition; 2) How does herbivory impact species composition and plant functional groups; and 3) How do the different responses to warming and herbivory interact?

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