Does climate change and plant phenology research neglect the Arctic tundra?

Abstract

AbstractPhenology, the annual timing of naturally recurring events in animals and plants, is exhibiting significant changes in response to climate change. Drastic shifts in the timing of plant activity have been observed in high‐latitude environments in particular, which are exposed to the greatest amount of warming. Taking into consideration the importance of plant growth and seasonal availability for the whole ecosystem, we would hope that ample research is conducted on the impacts of climate change on plant phenology in the Arctic tundra. We provide a geographic and temporal overview of research relating to impacts of climate change on plant phenology and investigate whether the Arctic tundra is receiving the research attention that appears warranted due to the rapid warming and large expected changes in this biome. We conducted a literature search for articles using the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science and evaluated focus on biomes, and temporal trends for 2000–2015. We found that the tundra was one of the least researched biomes, when compared to all other biomes. Proportional to the land surface the tundra covers, significantly less research in North America has been devoted to this biome than expected, while profusion of research in Europe was as expected. Additionally, we found that in the past sixteen years, despite the increase in the number of articles published relating to climate change and plant phenology, the proportion of the research devoted to the tundra decreased over time. Our findings also indicate that more work is being done on plant phenology and climate change in lower latitudes. We suggest that the results of this analysis are due to three non‐insurmountable obstacles (access, expense, and complexity) and provide practical suggestions for increased investment in climate change and plant phenology research in the otherwise neglected Arctic tundra.