Climate Change and Tundra Plants on Victoria Island, Western Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Project leader: James Schaefer, Trent University

Research Summary:

How has Arctic vegetation changed in three decades?

As the Arctic warms, tundra plants are likely to be severely affected by rapid environmental changes. This project examined how Arctic vegetation has shifted by returning to plots established three decades ago.

In 1991 to 1992, 80 permanent plots were established at Ekalluktok, on southeastern Victoria Island, Nunavut, to study the vegetation growing there. Thirty years later, in 2019 to 2022, researchers from Trent University returned to those plots to repeat the earlier study observations. They compared the two sets of observations, measuring the changes in the abundance and types of plants.

Results showed that vegetation had changed significantly. Compared to the early 1990s, grasses and sedges were now more abundant, while mountain avens, alpine bistort, and purple saxifrage had declined. Mosses and white heather had also decreased slightly in abundance. There was, however, no noticeable change in the abundance of willows, unlike some other regions of the Arctic where shrubs have increased.

The vegetation changes at Ekalluktok are similar to those observed in other Arctic regions, where grasses and sedges have increased due to climate change.

The researchers also photographed the plots and recorded the Global Positioning System (GPS) locations. These data are available to the community, and the plots can be used in the future to monitor and detect further changes to the vegetation.

Read the full research results in Polar Research: Increases in graminoids after three decades of change in the High Arctic.

This project received funding from the Kenneth M. Molson Charitable Foundation, Polar Knowledge Canada, Symons Trust for Canadian Studies, Trent University and World Wildlife Fund-Canada.