Complex interactions among multiple abiotic and biotic drivers result in rapid changes in ecosystems worldwide. Predicting how specific interactions can cause ripple effects potentially resulting in abrupt shifts in ecosystems is of high relevance to policymakers, but difficult to quantify using data from singular cases. We present causalizeR (https://github.com/fjmurguzur/causalizeR), a text-processing ...

1. Herbivore-induced changes in both leaf silicon-based defence and nutrient levels are potential mechanisms through which grazers alter the quality of their own grass supply. In tundra grasslands, herbivores have been shown to increase nutrient contents of grasses; yet, it is an open question whether they also increase grass silicon-based defence levels. Here, we asked if, and to what extent, ...

Polar marine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Warming temperatures, freshening seawater, and disruption to sea-ice formation potentially all have cascading effects on food webs. New approaches are needed to better understand spatiotemporal interactions among biogeochemical processes at the base of Southern Ocean food webs. In marine systems, isoscapes (models ...

As a contribution to understanding the ecological framework of protistan seasonal succession patterns, we present the weekly-to-monthly (January–October) light microscopy-based study of nano- and microplanktonic protist communities of Adventfjorden waters in 2013. In general, protist dynamics corresponded to the classic paradigm for the Arctic ice-free waters with extremely low abundance and diversity ...

The impact of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) on marine mammals remains poorly documented despite their increasing use. In the high-Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard, where marine mammals face increasing pressure from climate change and expanding tourism, the use of RPAS remains largely unregulated. In this study we assessed the impacts of RPAS across a range of species to provide ...

Objectives - In extreme environments, such as the Arctic region, the anthropogenic influence is low and the presence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria is unexpected. In this study, we screened wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) from the Svalbard High Arctic Archipelago for antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli and performed in-depth strain characterisation.<p> <p>Methods - Using ...

Scientists and wildlife managers implementing adaptive monitoring and management schemes, are tasked with providing predictions of population responses to harvest and environmental changes. Such predictions are useful not only to forecast direct effects of climate, productivity, land use, or habitat degradation, but also changes in the food web, such as expanding/increasing species that are predators, ...

Poleward shifts in species distributions are expected and frequently observed with a warming climate. In Arctic ecosystems, the strong warming trends are associated with increasing greenness and shrubification. Vertebrate herbivores have the potential to limit greening and shrub advance and expansion on the tundra, posing the question of whether changes in herbivore communities could partly mediate ...

Sea-ice macrofauna includes ice amphipods and benthic amphipods, as well as mysids. Amphipods are important components of the sympagic food web, which is fuelled by the production of ice algae. Data on the diversity of sea-ice biota have been collected as a part of scientific expeditions over decades, and here we present a pan-Arctic analysis of data on ice-associated amphipods and mysids assimilated ...

The biosynthesis of anthocyanins has been shown to be influenced by light quality. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the light-mediated regulation of fruit anthocyanin biosynthesis are not well understood. In this study, we analysed the effects of supplemental red and blue light on the anthocyanin biosynthesis in non-climacteric bilberry (<i>Vaccinium myrtillus</i> L.). After 6 days of ...