Life changes as polar regions thaw

24 July 2012

Current Biology

Current Biology, Volume 22, Issue 14, R547-R550, 24 July 2012 doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.07.009

View Journal Article / Working Paper

Researchers led by Bruce Forbes at the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland looked into the shrubs of the northwestern Eurasian tundra, which over the last few decades have increased in size and are now much more likely to reach tree height. “The landscape is now more like parkland with thickets of forest in specific places, for instance in concave parts such as in places where a landslide had taken place,” explains Marc Macias-Fauria from the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Oxford, who is the first author of this study (Nature Clim. Change (2012) doi:10.1038/nclimate1558).