Parasitoids indicate major climate‐induced shifts in arctic communities

Seabird-driven shifts in Arctic pond ecosystems.

Migratory animals such as seabirds, salmon and whales can transport large quantities of nutrients across ecosystem boundaries, greatly enriching recipient food webs. As many of these animals biomagnify contaminants, they can also focus pollutants at toxic levels. Seabirds arguably represent the most significant biovectors of nutrients and contaminants from the ocean to the land, given their she...

The Arctic shifts to a new normal

Climate-driven regime shifts in Arctic marine benthos.

Climate warming can trigger abrupt ecosystem changes in the Arctic. Despite the considerable interest in characterizing and understanding the ecological impact of rapid climate warming in the Arctic, few long time series exist that allow addressing these research goals. During a 30-y period (1980-2010) of gradually increasing seawater temperature and decreasing sea ice cover in Svalbard, we doc...

Shifts in Arctic vegetation and associated feedbacks under climate change

Climate warming has led to changes in the composition, density and distribution of Arctic vegetation in recent decades1–4. These changes cause multiple opposing feedbacks between the biosphere and atmosphere5–9, the relative magnitudes of which will have globally significant consequences but are unknown at a pan-Arctic scale10. The precise nature of Arctic vegetation change under future warming...

Ancient host shifts followed by host conservatism in a group of ant parasitoids.

While ant colonies serve as host to a diverse array of myrmecophiles, few parasitoids are able to exploit this vast resource. A notable exception is the wasp family Eucharitidae, which is the only family of insects known to exclusively parasitize ants. Worldwide, approximately 700 Eucharitidae species attack five subfamilies across the ant phylogeny. Our goal is to uncover the pattern of euchar...