Arctic plants and insects

This 2014 video from Canada says about itself:

Jennifer Doubt, botanist and curator at the Canadian Museum of Nature, talks about discovering Arctic plants.

She explores terrain in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and Greenland during a Students on Ice Arctic expedition.

Expedition Arctic is an educational web site for youth. It was created by the Canadian Museum of Nature, Students on Ice and Habitat Seven, in collaboration with the Virtual Museum of Canada.

Insect pollination is as important to Arctic plants as it is to plants further south. When flowers abound, the plants have to compete for pollinators. Researchers at the University of Helsinki reveal that higher temperatures cause the flowering periods of different plant species to pile up in time. As a consequence, climate change may affect the competitive relationships of plants. The most attractive plant species steal the majority of pollinators, making other plants flowering at the same time suffer from poorer pollination: here.

Through a unique research collaboration, researchers at the University of Helsinki have exposed major changes taking place in the insect communities of the Arctic. Their study reveals how climate change is affecting small but important predators of other insects, i.e. parasitoids: here.

Puffins reunite with their mates, video

This 15 May 2020 says about itself:

Puffins Reunite with Their Lifelong Mates

Spy puffin is surrounded by males waiting for their long-lost partners to return for the breeding season.

Arctic sea butterflies swim, video

This 19 May 2020 video says about itself:

How Sea Butterflies “Fly” in Water

Birds fly, and fish swim. We learn this when we are children. But not everything in nature is quite so simple… Meet Limacina helicina, an Arctic-dwelling sea butterfly that flies through the water.

Hosted by: Hank Green.

How Arctic rock ptarmigans save energy

This October 2012 video is called Svalbard rock ptarmigan (winter plumage).

From Lund University:

Arctic wildlife uses extreme method to save energy

April 28, 2020

The extreme cold, harsh environment and constant hunt for food means that Arctic animals have become specialists in saving energy. Now, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered a previously unknown energy-saving method used by birds during the polar night.

Researchers from Lund University and the University of Tromsø have examined the immune system strength of the Svalbard rock ptarmigan in the Arctic. This bird lives the farthest up in the Arctic of any land bird, and the researchers have investigated how the immune response varies between winter and late spring.

When I was in Svalbard in June, I saw rock ptarmigans. Including a male which had spent the night on a telephone pole (safe from local Arctic foxes). He landed and mated with a female.

“We have discovered that the birds reduce how much they spend on keeping their own immune defence system up and running during the five months of the year when it is dark around the clock, probably to save energy. Instead, they use those resources on keeping warm and looking for food. When daylight returns, their immune response is strengthened again,” says Andreas Nord, researcher at Lund University.

The researchers found that when the birds become ill in mid-winter, their energy consumption drops compared to when they are healthy. However, when the birds become ill in late spring, their energy consumption increases instead.

“A weaker immune system is probably a part of all the adaptations that Arctic animals use to save energy in winter. The risk of being infected by various diseases so far north is less in winter than when it becomes warmer towards summer,” says Andreas Nord.

When Svalbard rock ptarmigan save energy in this manner, they do so by weakening an already weak immune system. According to the researchers, this is probably due to the fact that the species evolved in the Arctic where there has been less of a need for a very strong immune defence system.

“This may have negative consequences when the climate changes and migratory birds arrive earlier in the Arctic and leave later. More and more tourists also come ashore in places where people have not set foot before. Such a scenario paves the way for an increased risk of disease and may be a threat to animals that have evolved in the Arctic where a strong immune defence system might not have been needed,” Andreas Nord concludes.

Young Brünnich guillemots’ first flight

This 19 February 2020 video says about itself:

Tiny Guillemot Chick’s Treacherous First Flight | BBC Earth

Guillemot chicks have to take a daring first flight from their cliff-edge nests to the open ocean. Dangers lie between; can they evade the hungry Arctic foxes below?

Whale, walrus, and seal calls in the Arctic

This 2016 video says about itself:

Humpback whales feeding on herring in the Unimak Pass area of the Bering Sea.

The birds are shearwaters that migrate from the Southern Hemisphere.

From the Wildlife Conservation Society:

Scientists listen to whales, walruses and seals in a changing Arctic seascape

Multi-year, year-round acoustic study in northern Bering Sea records more than 30,000 whale, walrus, and seal calls

February 3, 2020

A year-round acoustic study of marine mammals in the northern Bering Sea is providing scientists with a valuable snapshot of an Arctic world already under drastic pressure from climate change, according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), Columbia University, Southall Environmental Associates, and the University of Washington.

Authors of the new study in the journal Marine Mammal Science conducted a 4-year acoustic monitoring project to determine how seasons, sea surface temperature, and sea ice influence the presence, distribution, and movements of five species of endemic Arctic marine mammals. It is the first study to conduct year-round acoustic monitoring for marine mammals off St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea.

“The data gathered during the study will serve as an important baseline for future monitoring of the effects of climate change, subsequent sea ice changes, and expected increases in shipping on the distribution of the region’s marine mammals,” said Emily Chou, WCS scientist and lead author of the study.

The scientists conducted the study between 2012 and 2016 with a focus on five species of Arctic marine mammal: bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), walrus (Odobenus rosmarus), bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus), and ribbon seals (Histriophoca fasciata).

With the support of local indigenous hunters and fishermen, the scientists deployed archival acoustic recorders in three locations in the northern Bering Sea. “Working with local residents to deploy and retrieve equipment was an important part of our effort to keep the work as locally-based as possible,” said co-author Martin Robards.

Two of the recorders (attached to flotation devices and anchored to the seafloor with weights) were deployed off the northern shore of St. Lawrence Island, specifically near the Native villages of Savoonga and Gambell. The third recorder was placed in the Bering Strait, a 36-mile wide gap between the Russian Far East and Alaska that serves as the migratory pathway for thousands of marine mammals moving between the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

“Acoustic monitoring is the most effective means of determining the seasonal presence of these species in these challenging Arctic areas, given the unpredictable weather conditions and variable daylight and ice conditions,” said Brandon Southall, a co-author on the study. “It can also be used to measure variability in ocean noise from both natural and human sources, such as shipping, and how they may affect the behavior and well-being of marine mammals.”

The recorders logged more than 33,000 individual vocalizations from whales, walruses, and seals over the study period. Overall, the study supported previous scientific and traditional knowledge about the distribution of marine mammals in the northern Bering Sea with a finer-scale resolution than previously available. The data showed consistent seasonal distribution and movement patterns for most species, and analyses showed that time-of-year was the most statistically significant factor in the detection of marine mammal vocalization.

The study findings will help guide future monitoring efforts on the region’s cetacean and pinniped species and will inform conservation management decisions for acoustically sensitive marine mammals in the context of disappearing ice and projected increases in maritime traffic. Specifically, this type of work and continued monitoring at strategic locations in this Arctic area will eventually help identify trends caused by long-term changes in environmental conditions and human-related activities.

“There is no doubt that the Arctic is currently undergoing rapid and significant changes that are alarming,” said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of WCS’s Ocean Giants Program. “Our work on Arctic marine mammal populations in this region is essential to assess any forthcoming resulting shifts or changes resulting from warming Arctic conditions, and ultimately working partners and authorities to find solution to protect these iconic species and their habitats”.

Arctic seabirds and global warming, new research

This August 2018 video is about a long-tailed jaeger.

From the University of Barcelona in Spain:

Early breeding season for some Arctic seabirds due to global warming

October 7, 2019

The breeding season of some seabirds in Arctic regions takes place earlier as a result of the temperature rise caused by climate change, according to a science article with Francisco Ramírez, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona -as one of the main authors.

According to the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, surface-feeding seabirds in the north of the Pacific Ocean are moving their breeding season to an earlier timing than the rest of species -about ten days before for over the last thirty-five years- due the ocean’s temperature rise and ice melting, which are signs of Spring onset in the Arctic.

The first author of this study -which is focused on the analysis of twenty-nine seabird species from thirty-six different locations- is Sébastien Descamps, from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø (Norway). Other researchers from several institutions and research centers in Norway, Spain, Canada, France and the United States have taken part in the study.

When Spring arrives earlier

The Arctic is one of the most sensitive areas to the global warming effects. Ice melting and the continuous rise of temperatures -higher than the average worldwide- are dramatically altering the structure of the Arctic ecosystems.

“Polar systems are among the most threatened in the world. This is causing substantial changes in environmental conditions which condition the survival of the organisms that live in extreme latitudes. Birds, and specially seabirds, represent one of the most threatened taxonomic groups due the effects of global warming and the human activity impact (fishing, etc.)”, notes Francisco Ramírez, member of the Department of Animal Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

In Arctic regions, the time period with optimal conditions for the reproduction of seabirds is quite limited. The new study focuses on the analysis of the phenological response of seabirds, and in particular, the link between climate factors and the reproductive cycle of these birds in extreme latitudes.

A limited amount of time to successfully reproduce

“Arctic seabirds only reproduce during a particular time in Spring, when light and temperature conditions, as well as food availability, are optimal. However, this temporary window with optimal conditions does not last long, and if these animals are not able to adapt, they can fail when trying to reproduce,” comments Francisco Ramírez, the only researcher in Spain to take part in this international study.

Global warming is causing alterations in the breeding season of these seabirds. These try to move their breeding season earlier to adapt -more or less successfully- to this early spring environmental changes. Also, populations of seabirds do not show homogenous patterns when this phenomenon is studied. These seabirds in the north of the Pacific Ocean are the ones to have shown the highest change regarding time in their breeding season, authors note.

Ecology and feeding strategies of each species could also influence in the response of seabirds to this climate challenge. Seabirds that move their breeding the earliest get their food in shallow waters. These are, for instance, the long-tailed jaeger (Stercorarius longicaudus), red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris), the black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), the glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus), the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea), the Leach’s petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa), and the northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis).

Changes in the breeding season seem less in species that dive to catch preys, such as the Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica), the rhinoceros auklet (Cerorhinca monocerata), the tufted puffin (Fratercula cirrhata), the horned puffin (Fratercula corniculata), and the crested auklet (Aethia cristatella).

Surviving the climate crisis

Global warming caused by human activity is affecting organisms in many ways, although many of them are still unknown. However, not all evidence points out to the same direction. Sometimes we find results or evidence that could be contradictory.

“This can only mean there is still a lot to find out about how species respond to the environmental changes that are occurring and the consequences of these responses. Therefore, we have to take these changes, which are taking place in natural ecosystems in general and the arctic ones specifically, very seriously,” notes Francisco Ramírez.

In this context of change, not all living beings can respond in a similar way to the environmental changes caused by global warming. Some species move to higher latitudes or altitudes as the temperature rises, and others change their diet responding to the changes in food availability. There are even some species that have not shown a response, but all these behaviours can influence in the population dynamics of each species and the whole natural ecosystem.

Some of the analysed species in the study -such as red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris), the Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica), and the Leach’s petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) -are listed as vulnerable species in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. “Regarding the Arctic birds, the changes we observe can have severe consequences in populations, especially if we think about the species with less abilities to adapt the environmental changes due global warming,” warns Ramírez.

Long-term study values in ecology

The study is based on the analysis of record and studies on the control of species in the natural environment carried out over the last thirty-five years. The long-term studies and availability of history data -environmental and biological data- are essential to assess the animals’ response to the environmental changes. “We can only infer the consequences of climate change by having a deep knowledge of these responses, and we have to act consequently if we want to preserve biodiversity,” notes Ramírez.

“However, our research system is strictly focused on short-term studies and penalizes those research projects that need data gathering for long periods of time. Therefore, databases such as the ones we used in this international study are only a few, and thus they are of great scientific value,” concludes the researcher.

It is common knowledge that glaciers are melting in most areas across the globe. The speed at which tropical glaciers in the Peruvian Andes are retreating is particularly alarming, however. In the first detailed investigation of all Peruvian mountain ranges, a research team has ascertained a drastic reduction of almost 30 percent in the area covered by glaciers between 2000 and 2016: here.

Another casualty of climate change will likely be shoreline recreational fishing, according to new research. The study finds some regions of the U.S. may benefit from increasing temperatures, but those benefits will be more than offset by declines in fishing elsewhere: here.

Pressure may be key to fighting climate change with thermoelectric generators: here.

Polluting emissions from Chinese thermal power plants declined significantly between 2014 and 2017, according to research involving UCL. The reductions are important in helping to control China’s national emissions which could lead to an improvement in air quality and considerable health benefits. A team of experts from the UK and China analysed emissions from coal, oil, natural gas and biomass power plants, with a focus on coal-fired power plants as the major contributors to ambient air pollution. The study, published today in Nature Energy, analysed data from 2014, when China introduced the ambitious Ultra-Low Emissions (ULE) Standards Policy for renovating coal-fired power stations to limit air pollutant emissions, to 2017: here.

Pectoral sandpipers on video

This video is about pectoral sandpipers.

They nest in Arctic Siberia and Arctic North America.

In Spitsbergen, I saw a male doing mating season behaviour. However, there was no female pectoral sandpiper present.

Arctic Ice Age hyenas discovery

This 17 January 2019 video says about itself:

Chasmaporthetes, also known as hunting or running hyena, is an extinct genus of hyenas distributed in Eurasia, North America, and Africa. It lived during the Pliocene-Pleistocene epochs, from 4.9 million to 780,000 years ago, existing for about 4.12 million years.

The genus probably arose from Eurasian Miocene hyenas such as Thalassictis or Lycyaena, with C. borissiaki being the oldest known representative. It was a fast runner and an important carnivore on 4 continents during the Pliocene.

At least nine species are currently recognised. The genus type species is Chasmaporthetes ossifragus. It was assigned to Hyaenidae by Hay (1921), Geraads (1997), and Flynn (1998).

The species C. ossifragus was the only hyena to cross the Bering land bridge into the Americas. C. ossifragus ranged over what is now Arizona and Mexico during Blancan and early Irvingtonian Land Mammal ages, between 5.0 and 1.5 million years ago.

Chasmaporthetes was one of the so-called “dog-like” hyenas (of which the aardwolf is the only survivor), a hyaenid group which, in contrast to the now more common “bone-crushing” hyenas, evolved into slender-limbed, cursorial hunters like modern canids.

The genus has entered the popular culture lexicon as a result of cryptozoologic claims, having been proposed as the likely origin of the American Shunka Warakin and the Cuitlamiztli.

Chasmaporthetes was named by Hay (1921), who noted the name to be a reference to the possibility that the beginning of the Grand Canyon was witnessed by the North American species, C. ossifragus.

The limb bones of Chasmaporthetes were long and slender like those of cheetahs, and its cheek teeth were slender and sharp-edged like those of a cat. Chasmaporthetes likely inhabited open ground and was a daytime hunter.

In Europe, the species C. lunensis competed with the giant cheetah Acinonyx pardinensis, and may have preyed on the small bourbon gazelle (Gazella borbonica) and the chamois antelope (Procamptoceras brivatense).

The North American C. ossifragus was similar in build to C. lunensis, but had slightly more robust jaws and teeth. It may have preyed on the giant marmot Paenemarmota, and competed with the far more numerous Borophagus diversidens.

A study on the genus’ premolar intercuspid notches indicated Chasmaporthetes was likely hypercarnivorous rather than durophagous as its modern cousins (excluding the aardwolf) are.

Like most of the animals of the time, reasons for its extinction are not known.

By Nicoletta Lanese, 6:00am, June 18, 2019:

Hyenas roamed the Arctic during the last ice age

Newly identified fossils confirm how the carnivores migrated to North America, researchers say

Modern hyenas stalk the savannas of Asia and Africa, but the animals’ ancient relatives may have had snowier stomping grounds: the Arctic. Two fossilized teeth, collected in Canada in the 1970s, confirm a long-held hunch that ancient hyenas ventured into North America via the Bering land bridge, scientists say.

The teeth belonged to members of the extinct genus Chasmaporthetes, also known as the “running hyena” for their unusually long legs, researchers report June 18 in Open Quaternary. Like wolves, the creatures could sprint over long distances. That ability that may have enabled the hyenas to make the long trek to America from Asia. Running hyena remains crop up across the southern United States and central Mexico. But before the Arctic discovery, a more than 10,000-kilometer gap lay between them and their closest relatives in Mongolia.

“This new Arctic find puts a dot right in the middle of that”, says paleontologist Jack Tseng of the University at Buffalo in New York. “It actually confirms previous hypotheses about how hyenas got to the New World.”

The teeth date to between 850,000 and 1.4 million years ago, Tseng says, placing the hyenas in the Arctic during the Pleistocene Ice Age, which began roughly 2.6 million years ago and lasted until about 11,700 years ago. The large carnivores may have hunted ancient caribou, horses, camels and the occasional juvenile mammoth (SN: 4/6/13, p. 9).

Paleontologists originally dug up the teeth in the Old Crow Basin in the Yukon at a site nicknamed the “supermarket of fossils”. There, rushing water dislodges fossils from their soil beds and drops them along bends in the river. The spoils can be reached only by boat or helicopter, but it’s worth the effort — over 50,000 known mammal fossils have been collected in the basin to date.

For decades, the hyena teeth lay buried among fossil specimens in the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. Few field notes referenced the finds, and an unpublished manuscript by archaeologist Brenda Beebe provided the only photographs. Tseng and his colleagues finally tracked the fossils down; they were a mere six-hour drive from his home base in Buffalo.

“Hyena are one of the groups with a really patchy fossil record in North America. This finding adds to our knowledge of how the species came over,” says paleontologist Julie Meachen of Des Moines University in Iowa, who was not involved in the study. The finding opens the door for further research on the migration of carnivores across the Bering land bridge (SN: 1/31/09, p. 5), Meachen says, and may help clarify which species competed for the same kills during the Pleistocene.

See also here.

Red-necked phalarope migration, new research

This 22 June 2018 video is called Wildlife photography – Getting close to the bird Red-necked phalarope.

From the University of Barcelona:

Red-neck phalarope: A migratory divide towards the Pacific Ocean and Arabian Sea

An exceptional strategy when winter comes

April 26, 2019

When winter comes, populations of red-neck phalarope from the Western Palearctic migrate to two different destinations -the Pacific Ocean or the Arabian Sea- following an exceptional migratory divide strategy which has never been described in this geographical area.

A part of these bird populations -which breed in Greenland, Island [ivceland] and the British Islands- cross more than 10,000 kilometres to reach the Pacific Ocean, while populations in Scandinavia and Russia go to the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean, more than 6,000 kilometres away from their breeding areas.

This migratory behaviour is now described for the first time in an article published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution -in which the researchers Raül Ramos and Jacob González-Solís, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio) take part.

An uncommon wintering species in the peninsula

The red-neck phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) is a migratory bird from the family of phalaropes that live in the tundra and high polar latitudes during their reproduction season. These small shore birds spend a part of their annual cycle -mainly the wintering period- at open sea, and therefore they are regarded as pelagic birds. During the migratory routes after breeding season -from August to September- this species can be occasionally seen in peninsular areas such as the Ebro Delta or the Atlantic and the Cantabrian coasts.

In the new study, led by the expert Rob S. A. van Bemmelen, from the Wageningen University (the Netherlands), the UB-IRBio team has collaborated placing geolocators -devices to monitor long distance migrations- in different breeding sites, the modelling of the habitat of different populations and the study of the ecology of the marine birds. The results show the existence of a migratory divide with two defined populations -but relatively close- in the geography of the Western Palearctic.

“In particular, populations of the North Atlantic and the Fennoscandia spend the winter in two geographical areas far from each other and under differentiated environmental conductions (climate, natural resources, etc.) determined by the wintering area,” notes Raül Ramos, Ramón y Cajal researcher from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the UB and IRBio.

“Red-neck phalarope populations of the North Atlantic stop along the way when migrating to the Pacific Ocean -covering almost the double of the distance- and migrate at a higher speed than the populations of Fennoscandia,” he continues. “They also have longer wings, a morphological feature that could be explained with the differences in the migratory pattern between both migratory bird populations.”

A migratory divide without geographical barriers

There are many cases of migratory divide in the European continent which are related to geographical barriers (for example, the Mediterranean). This is the case, for instance, of several species of sub-Saharan migratory birds with a dual migratory pattern: the models of populations that breed in the center and western areas of Europe migrate through the Strait of Gibraltar and the ones from Eastern Europe do so through the Arabian Peninsula.

However, regarding the red-neck phalarope, the migratory divide can occur without clear geographical barriers but as a reflex of the species’ biogeographical history. “The migratory route of the population of the North Atlantic towards the Pacific could be an evolutionary legacy of an ancestral population with its origins in North America. Therefore, the distribution range of this original nucleus would have spread to the east -to the British Islands- in a process that kept the primary migratory route of populations towards wintering areas of the Pacific Ocean,” notes Professor Jacob González-Solís, from the mentioned Department and IRBio.

Challenge: identifying global migratory patterns in the planet

Nowadays, the red-neck phalarope has a population between three and four million and the species shows a decreasing demographic trend in most of the breeding populations. It is catalogued as a least-concern species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and is mainly affected due industrial pollution -in particular, agricultural pesticides- and oil spills that affect the Arctic breeding regions. Also, the decline of farming activity in breeding areas makes plants to grow uncontrolledly, therefore invading lakes where red-neck phalarope use to nest.

In this context, the new study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution shows the importance of international scientific collaborations “and the metapopulational studies to identify global migratory patterns to find a specific species to avoid the risk of falling into local specificities that do not allow generalizing a migratory behaviour,” says Raül Ramos.