Recent history of vegetation changes in the arctic

This chapter starts with a brief description of the Arctic tundra biome, and then summarizes how historical data have been used to describe and understand recent trends in Arctic tundra vegetation. In doing so, the chapter focuses on changes observed during the last five decades, while refraining from digging into the paleoecological records. It provides an overview of the recent changes in arctic tundra vegetation revealed by the historical archives. During the last few decades, the authors have seen three major dimensions of ecological change, namely, changes in vegetation productivity, vegetation phenology and plant community structure, composition and diversity. Importantly, the major trends of vegetation change detected across the Arctic are almost invariably associated with a high variability in the direction and magnitude of change across space, over time and among species. This points to a strong context-dependence in how tundra vegetation responds to climate change.