Response of vegetation and carbon fluxes to brown lemming herbivory in northern Alaska

Plein, Jessica; Clark, Rulon W.; Arndt, Kyle A.; Oechel, Walter C.; Stow, Douglas; Zona, Donatella

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-2779-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-2779-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-2779-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 11

Research article

|

02 Jun 2022

Research article |

| 02 Jun 2022

Response of vegetation and carbon fluxes to brown lemming herbivory in northern Alaska

Jessica Plein, Rulon W. Clark, Kyle A. Arndt, Walter C. Oechel, Douglas Stow, and Donatella Zona

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-2779-2022-supplement

Data sets

Brown Lemming Herbivory Experiment Data, Alaskan Arctic (summers 2018, 2019) Jessica Plein, Donatella Zona, Rulon Clark, Kyle Arndt, Walter Oechel, and Douglas Stow https://doi.org/10.18739/A2S17ST8F

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Short summary

Tundra vegetation and the carbon balance of Arctic ecosystems can be substantially impacted by herbivory. We tested how herbivory by brown lemmings in individual enclosure plots have impacted carbon exchange of tundra ecosystems via altering carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) fluxes. Lemmings significantly decreased net CO₂ uptake while not affecting CH₄ emissions. There was no significant difference in the subsequent growing season due to recovery of the vegetation.