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Linking Fine-Scale Sub-Arctic Vegetation Distribution in Complex Topography with Surface-Air-Temperature Modelled at 50-m Resolution

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Abstract

Recent studies have shown that the complexities of the surface features in mountainous terrain require a re-assessment of climate impacts at the local level. We explored the importance of surface-air-temperature based on a recently published 50-m-gridded dataset, versus soil variables for explaining vegetation distribution in Swedish Lapland using generalised linear models (GLMs). The results demonstrated that the current distribution of the birch forest and snowbed community strongly relied on the surface-air-temperature. However, temperature alone is a poor predictor of many plant communities (wetland, meadow). Because of diminishing sample representation with increasing altitude, the snowbed community was under-sampled at higher altitudes. This results in underestimation of the current distribution of the snowbed community around the mountain summits. The analysis suggests that caution is warranted when applying GLMs at the local level.

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Acknowledgments

This study was conducted as part of the Marie Curie Early Stage Training network—Multiarc-supported by European Union FP7. This study was also partially supported by FORMAS projects “Climate change, impacts and adaptation in the sub-Arctic: a case study from the northern Swedish mountains” (214-2008-188) and “Advanced Simulation of Arctic climate change and impact on Northern regions” (214-2009-389). The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments. The authors are grateful to Eva Kuster, Jonas Åkerman, Christer Jonasson, and Jonathon Seaquist for valuable comments. We would like to thank Paul Coles for his help to redraw the graphs. We would like to thank Abisko Scientific Research Station staff for help and data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science (ENES), Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, Lund, Sweden

    Zhenlin Yang & Martin T. Sykes

  2. Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Winter Street, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK

    Edward Hanna

  3. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lilla Frescativägen 4 A, 114 18, Stockholm, Sweden

    Terry V. Callaghan

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  1. Zhenlin Yang
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Correspondence to Zhenlin Yang.

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Yang, Z., Sykes, M.T., Hanna, E. et al. Linking Fine-Scale Sub-Arctic Vegetation Distribution in Complex Topography with Surface-Air-Temperature Modelled at 50-m Resolution. AMBIO 41 (Suppl 3), 292–302 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-012-0307-0

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