Divergent shrub-cover responses driven by climate, wildfire, and permafrost interactions in Arctic tundra ecosystems

Abstract

The expansion of shrubs across the Arctic tundra may fundamentally modify land-atmosphere interactions. However, it remains unclear how shrub expansion pattern is linked with key environmental drivers, such as climate change and fire disturbance. Here we used 40+ years of high-resolution (~1.0 m) aerial and satellite imagery to estimate shrub-cover change in 114 study sites across four burned and unburned upland (ice-poor) and lowland (ice-rich) tundra ecosystems in northern Alaska. Validated with data from four additional upland and lowland tundra fires, our results reveal that summer precipitation was the most important climatic driver (r = 0.67, p < 0.001), responsible for 30.8% of shrub expansion in the upland tundra between 1971 and 2016. Shrub expansion in the uplands was largely enhanced by wildfire (p < 0.001) and it exhibited positive correlation with fire severity (r = 0.83, p < 0.001). Three decades after fire disturbance, the upland shrub cover increased by 1077.2 ± 83.6 m² ha^-1 , ~7 times the amount identified in adjacent unburned upland tundra (155.1 ± 55.4 m² ha^-1 ). In contrast, shrub cover markedly decreased in lowland tundra after fire disturbance, which triggered thermokarst-associated water impounding and resulted in 52.4% loss of shrub cover over three decades. No correlation was found between lowland shrub cover with fire severity (r = 0.01). Mean summer air temperature (MSAT) was the principal factor driving lowland shrub-cover dynamics between 1951 and 2007. Warmer MSAT facilitated shrub expansion in unburned lowlands (r = 0.78, p < 0.001), but accelerated shrub-cover losses in burned lowlands (r = -0.82, p < 0.001). These results highlight divergent pathways of shrub-cover responses to fire disturbance and climate change, depending on near-surface permafrost and drainage conditions. Our study offers new insights into the land-atmosphere interactions as climate warming and burning intensify in high latitudes.

Keywords: Arctic tundra; climate change; drainage; permafrost degradation; shrub expansion; thermokarst; wildfire disturbance.