Recent changes in mountain birch forest structure and understory vegetation depend on the seasonal timing of reindeer grazing

Abstract

Abstract Subarctic forest‐tundra ecotones dominated by mountain birch (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii) are an important habitat for semi‐domestic reindeer Rangifer tarandus. The seasonal timing of reindeer grazing may direct vegetation trajectories in these systems, because in the summer ranges, mountain birches are subjected to browsing, while in the winter ranges, reindeer feed on understorey vegetation and arboreal lichens but leave the mountain birches intact. Based on earlier research, we predicted that (a) summer browsing dampens ongoing vegetation ‘shrubification’ in semi‐dry and dry mountain birch forests and (b) ‘shrubification’ is accompanied by a decline in lichens. We tested these predictions through re‐analysing forest structure and understorey vegetation after 12 years in areas where winter and summer ranges had been separated since the 1980s. We also tested how changes in lichen abundances align with changes in shrub abundances through correlation analyses. The number of tall mountain birch seedlings had increased twice as fast in winter than summer ranges, while big mountain birches had increased in summer ranges. The dominant evergreen dwarf shrub mountain crowberry (Empetrum nigrum ssp. hermaphroditum) had increased to a greater extent in winter ranges in a semidry habitat, and to a greater extent in summer ranges in a dry habitat. Deciduous dwarf shrub and graminoid biomass had increased similarly in summer and winter ranges. We found no evidence to support that increasing shrub abundances had contributed to a decline in lichens; instead, the lichen cover increased with increasing number of mountain birch seedlings. Synthesis and application. The vegetation trajectories of dry and semi‐dry subarctic mountain birch forests depend greatly on whether the area is used as a winter or a summer range for the reindeer. The recent changes in vegetation are likely to lead to improved summer forage availability for the reindeer, while the opposite may be true for the winter forage availability.