ORCID

Abstract

Arctic ecosystems are experiencing extreme climatic, biotic and physical disturbance events that can cause substantial loss of plant biomass and productivity, sometimes at scales of >1000 km2. Collectively known as browning events, these are key contributors to the spatial and temporal complexity of Arctic greening and vegetation dynamics. If we are to properly understand the future of Arctic terrestrial ecosystems, their productivity, and their feedbacks to climate, understanding browning events is essential. Here we bring together understanding of browning events in Arctic ecosystems to compare their impacts and rates of recovery, and likely future changes in frequency and distribution. We also seek commonalities in impacts across these contrasting event types. We find that while browning events can cause high levels of plant damage (up to 100% mortality), ecosystems have substantial capacity for recovery, with biomass largely re-established within five years for many events. We also find that despite the substantial loss of leaf area of dominant species, compensatory mechanisms such as increased productivity of undamaged subordinate species lessen the impacts on carbon sequestration. These commonalities hold true for most climatic and biotic events, but less so for physical events such as fire and abrupt permafrost thaw, due to the greater removal of vegetation. Counterintuitively, some events also provide conditions for greater productivity (greening) in the longer-term, particularly where the disturbance exposes ground for plant colonisation. Finally, we find that projected changes in the causes of browning events currently suggest many types of events will become more frequent, with events of tundra fire and abrupt permafrost thaw expected to be the greatest contributors to future browning due to their severe impacts and occurrence in many Arctic regions. Overall, browning events will have increasingly important consequences for ecosystem structure and function, and for feedback to climate.

Publication Date

2025-01-27

Publication Title

PLOS Climate

Volume

4

Issue

1

Acceptance Date

2025-01-13

Deposit Date

2025-02-10

Funding

The Event Drivers of Arctic Browning workshop was part-funded by P3-Plant Production and Protection, University of Sheffield. AMC was supported by NERC grant NE/M016323/1. JWB & HT were supported by the Research Council of Norway (grant 287402) and FRAM \u2013 High North Research Centre for Climate and the Environment (grant 369910). RGB was supported by the Swedish Research Council (grant 2018-04202 and 2023-04048). HEE was supported by the NASA Award 80NSSC18K0446 (Biodiversity and Ecological Forecasting). ACM was supported by the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 869471. TVC wishes to acknowledge the EU for funding (INTERACT grant agreement 871120). MML was supported by the US National Science Foundation (grant PLR-1417745). This review arose from the \u201CEvent Drivers of Arctic Browning\u201D workshop, held at the University of Sheffield, UK, We thank Holly Croft, Chuixiang Yi and Jill Edmondson for helpful comments on the manuscript.

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Phoenix_et_al._2025_PLOS_Climate.pdf (542 kB)
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Additional Files

Phoenix_et_al._2025_PLOS_Climate.pdf (542 kB)

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