Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BoRiS (uncovering the anatomical archive of annual RINGS to understand abiotic and biotic drivers of SHRUB growth at the range BORDER)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-10-01 al 2022-09-30
BoRiS aims at uncovering the information archived in annual rings to gain novel insight on how responses scale from individuals to communities. Specifically, the objectives of BoRiS are to: i) provide fundamental knowledge on how individuals, species, and communities of shrubs living at the border of woody plant growth respond to climate change; ii) quantify the value of wood anatomical traits from Arctic-alpine woody species as indicators of biotic disturbances and climatological proxies, as well as test if their value as proxies varies across sites and environmental conditions; iii) provide improved spatio-temporal projections of the magnitude of change in Arctic shrub communities under ongoing and future change.
We analysed how abiotic (e.g. environmental variability temperature, precipitation, nutrient availability, soil moisture) and biotic (e.g. defoliator insects) affected shrub xylem formation processes at different time scales (from years to centuries) and across environmental gradients. We verified the potential of shrubs growth as climatological proxy and quantified structural adjustments to altered growing conditions testing plants acclimation. We reviewed state-of-the-art dendroecological studies of Arctic shrub dynamics and identified the main research gaps and potential solutions to upscale responses from local to landscape/regional scale. Finally, combining dendroecological and remote sensing time-series, we revealed dynamics in willow biomass across ice-free Greenland.
The findings from BoRiS significantly advance our understanding on how Arctic-alpine shrubs will respond to climate change and will improve forecasts of vegetation dynamics and associated ecological impacts. This knowledge can also support sustainable management of tundra ecosystems under the ongoing global change scenario.
Results were communicated through scientific manuscripts (2 published, 1 accepted, 4 in preparation), posters (3 as first author) and oral presentations at conferences (5) and workshops (4), seminars and meetings (e.g. Vegegetation Dynamics, ArcticHub, Changes in Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity(CHARTER) and Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE) group meetings, Q-NET seminars). Moreover, MSc and PhD projects were integrated into BoRiS and students were actively involved in the project's research. The establishment of new collaborations allowed to explore novel research directions that resulted in 3 additional publications. Finally, several workshops on quantitative wood anatomy (Q-NET) with speakers from different countries and almost hundred participants were organized on-line. Supervision activities included co-supervision of BSc (10),MSc (2) and PhD (1) students. Training activities such as multiple courses, training school, and workshops allowed to acquire new scientific and transferable skills, for instance on teaching, project management, communication and dissemination.
The implementation of BoRiS has been affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic at various levels (research, training of the researcher, dissemination and communication of project results). Nevertheless, major milestones and objectives of the project could be achieved with minor deviations. Remaining objectives will be finalized in the near future (see project website below for future updates).
Overall, our findings based on Arctic-alpine shrub responses across organizational scales from the individual to the community have provided insight into spatio-temporal vegetation-environment interaction at unprecedented detail. Integrating new technologies and a multidisciplinary approach in dendroecological research could provide key opportunities to close important knowledge gaps in the understanding of scale-dependencies, as well as intra- and inter-specific variation, in vegetation responses across the Arctic and alpine environment, allowing for more precise forecast of tundra vegetation dynamics. The outputs from BoRiS should therefore support decision makers in environmental and conservation management in ensuring an environmentally and economically sustainable management of tundra ecosystems.