Relationships between abiotic (soil temperature and number of freeze-thaw cycles) or biotic factors (chemical elements, microbial biomass, extracellular enzymes, and decomposer communities in litter) and litter decomposition rates were investigated over two years in subalpine forests close to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Litterbags with senescent birch, fir, and spruce leaves were placed...

Understanding the effects of climate on vital rates (e.g., survival, development, reproduction) and dynamics natural populations is a long-standing quest in ecology, with ever-increasing relevance face change. However, linking drivers to demographic processes requires identifying appropriate time windows during which influences rates. Researchers often do not have access long-term data required...

objective: an increasing number of studies have reported on shifts in timing and length of the growing season, based on phonological, satellite and climatologically studies. changes in the timing and length of the growing season (gsl) may not only have far reaching consequences for plant and animal ecosystems, but persistent increases in gsl may lead to long-term increases in carbon storage and...

The Arctic is among the regions with the most rapid changes in climate and has the expected highest increase in temperature. Changes in the timing of phenological phases, such as onset of the growing season observed from remote sensing, are among the most sensitive bio-indicators of climate change. The study area here is the High Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, located between 76°30ʹ and 80°50ʹ...